Despite MHA’s repeated directives, work yet to begin in Rajouri-Poonch
Daunting task for Govt to meet June ending deadline
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Jan 22: State Government is unlikely to meet the latest deadline of June ending for completion of over 14400 individual and community bunkers in five border districts of Jammu region as only 951 bunkers have been constructed till date that too in Jammu, Samba and Kathua only while as work has yet not begun on any of the bunkers in Rajouri and Poonch districts.
A total of 13029 individual and 1431 community bunkers were sanctioned for Jammu, Samba, Kathua, Rajouri and Poonch districts by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs early last year to mitigate the hardships being faced by the people living in the vicinity of International Border and Line of Control due to shelling and firing by the Pakistani Rangers.
In the month of June last year, the State Government issued directions to the Deputy Commissioners of these five border districts to ensure early start of the work on individual and community type bunkers.
Even the Divisional Commissioner Jammu was directed to constitute multi-disciplinary team in each district for physical verification of work on regular basis and furnishing monthly progress report for onward submission to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
Moreover, latest conditions of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs were conveyed to the Deputy Commissioners as well as Roads and Buildings Department for strict compliance at the stage of construction of individual as well as community bunkers.
These conditions read: “The building norms for all areas up to five kilometres from borders shall be specified and priority shall be given to the bunkers which are nearest to the existing Border Out-Posts (BOPs). Every bunker should be within three kilometres from the border and first line of sight from International Border/Line of Control. All bunkers shall be geo-tagged and a proper Management Information System (MIS) shall be put in place where the requisite details shall be uploaded on a regular basis”.
Thereafter, the Ministry of Home Affairs a number of times asked the State Government to gear up the construction of bunkers in all these five districts and recently in an official meeting chaired by the Advisor to Governor Kewal Kumar Sharma it was stated that majority of these bunkers would be completed by ending June this year.
However, the official figures available with EXCELSIOR clearly indicate that meeting latest deadline of ending June would be a daunting task particularly in Rajouri and Poonch districts where work on even one bunker could not be started till date although Union Ministry of Home Affairs has already agreed to meet the additional cost in the construction of over 7000 individual and community workers in these districts.
In Jammu district, 326 individual and 44 community bunkers have been completed till date while as work has been taken up on another 576 individual and 41 community bunkers against a total of 1200 individual and 120 community bunkers sanctioned by the MHA.
Similarly, in Samba district 315 individual bunkers have been completed while as work has been taken up on 200 individual and 4 community bunkers against a total of 2515 individual and 8 community bunkers sanctioned by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
In Kathua district, 250 individual and 10 community bunkers have been completed while as work is at different stages in respect of 200 individual and 12 community bunkers. For this district a total of 3076 individual and 243 community bunkers have been sanctioned by the MHA.
“By the end of current financial year—March 31, 2019, the administration is likely to complete around 1500 bunkers in these three districts while as no number can be specified in respect of Rajouri and Poonch districts as tendering process has yet not reached the logical conclusion”, sources informed.
In Rajouri, 4918 individual and 372 community bunkers while as 1320 individual and 688 community bunkers are to be constructed in Poonch district.
“All these figures reveal that there are remote chances for meeting the latest deadline of ending June this year for completion of all 13029 individual and 1431 community type bunkers in these five districts”, sources said.
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