Excelsior Correspondent
KATHUA , Mar 27: Union Minister and BJP Lok Sabha candidate from Udhampur-Kathua-Doda Parliamentary constituency Dr Jitendra Singh said today that even the opposition parties are feeling compelled to acknowledge the revolutionary development witnessed in Kathua during the last five years and this is borne out by the fact that the Congress and its allies are regularly putting up on the social media, claims of having set up various projects which, in fact, are on record to have started only after June 2014.
Addressing a series of public meetings during election campaign in the various suburbs and Panchayats in the Kathua Assembly segment, Dr Jitendra Singh took a dig at the Congress and its allies, and said, the opposition parties are so rattled that they have started claiming vague ownership even for such projects which were started after June 2014 and completed before 2019.
He said, only the other day, one of the opposition leaders said that there was not a single project which had been started and completed in this period, to which he retorted saying that if you visit the landmark Keediyan-Gadhiyal Bridge at Lakhanpur, you will side-by-side find the foundation stone dated 2015 and inauguration stone dated 2018. Similarly, if you visit the newly started Radio Station in Udhampur, you will find the foundation stone of 2016 and inauguration stone of January 2019, he added.
Ridiculing the futile attempts by Congress and its allies to claim ownership on some of the national-level projects initiated in the constituency during the Modi Government, Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Rs.190 crore Devika River Project in Udhampur was started by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the State on 3rd February, but the Congress claims that it was started by their Government.
Similarly, the passport offices were opened in Kathua and Udhampur under the new scheme of Post Office Passport Sewa Kendra (POPSK) initiated by the Modi Government, but the Congress claims that it was started by its government.
While making a laughing stock of itself through such unfounded claims, Dr Jitendra Singh said, all the projects set up in the constituency during the last five years, are evidently visible and those who wish to satisfy themselves are welcome to visit the respective sites and take a selfie photograph with each of these monuments of development.
Dr Jitendra Singh enumerated several first-ever mega projects, including Keediyan-Gadhiyal bridge, Engineering College, two Medical Colleges, Seed Processing Plant, Industrial Bio-tech Park, two Highway Villages, Katra-Delhi Expressway road corridor for which survey has already begun, Radio Station and Devika Project in Udhampur, National Institute of High Altitude Medicinal Plants at Bhaderwah, two Degree Colleges in Kathua district, Pakkal-Dhul Project at Kishtwar, Atal Setu in Basohli, Juthana Bridge, Phinter Bridge, three landmark road tunnels namely Chhattergalla tunnel, Khilaini-Shuddh Mahadev tunnel and Kaljugar tunnel, 12 BRO bridges including the Devika Bridge and Beini Bridge, Shahpur-Kandi project which had been in cold storage for 40 years. In addition, he said, the injustice of the past was also undone by granting 3% reservation to people living on the International Border (IB) on the same lines as was already available to residents living along the Line of Control (LoC). Bunkers, Seema Bhawans and toilets in the border villages and four times increase in the honorarium of SPOs.
During these meetings Dr Jitendra Singh was accompanied MLA Kathua Rajiv Jasrotia, District President Prem Nath Dogra, State leaders Gopal Mahajan, Janak Bharati, Shashipal Sharma, Organization Secretary Indrajeet, various Mandal Presidents, Surpanches and Panches and prominent leaders.
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