After years of extended bureaucratic exercise, visits by survey teams, skullduggery at numberless meetings of officials and exhaustive paper work, the project of constructing the contemplated three tiers ropeway viz. Peerkho-Mahamaya-Shahbad, seems to be now on the last leg of its tortuous journey. With the Forest Advisory Committee giving its nod to the transfer of around 70 kanals of forest land to the J&K Cable Car Corporation, the last hitch in putting the project on rails has been removed.
Perhaps at the time when the project was conceived for implementation a couple of years ago, nobody had thought of convoluted process through such projects are required to go before they come to the execution stage. The Supreme Court, the Central Empowerment Committee, J&K State Cable Car corporation, Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, State Forest and Revenue Departments and finally the Sate Cabinet are the agencies who needed to make input before the project would see the light of the day. The fundamental guiding factor that had to be kept in mind at all stages and by all stakeholders was that the project did not disrupt the ecological balance of Jammu. As we know Jammu town is already maintaining very critical ecological balance owing to various factors. Mahamaya forest in close proximity of the town is regarded the lungs of the body of Jammu city. The city breathes through it. Therefore it had to be ensured at every step taken towards the finalization of the project that no damage was done to the environmental character of Mahamaya forests.
The ropeway is expected to be a great tourist attraction as passage in a gondola over the ropeway end to end will present a grand and imposing panoramic view of the city of temples, it crisscrossing roads and flyovers, the serpentine river bed, the mountains and the forests. The nearly 1600 meter long ropeway will be a fun for the children, and a spectacle for the grown ups. The two terminals will also provide smart eateries and amusement for the kids that would be additional attraction for visitors to the ropeway.
We learn that M/s RITES India Limited, have been engaged as consultant for the project and M/s Damodar Ropeway and Infrastructure Ltd, Kolkata in collaboration with STM Teleferik Turkey has already been awarded the contract. These are reputed firms with considerable expertise in the field. One more important aspect connected with the project in hand is that of acquiring land belonging either to the Government (forest department) to private owners. The Forest Advisory Committee has only two days back given its nod to acquiring of the land that is owned by it. As far as the private land is concerned, the Deputy Commissioner of Jammu has said that there is no dispute on private land acquisition. All documents have been verified and approved and even money to be paid by way of compensation to the land owners has already been transferred to the Revenue department.
We appreciate the Government expeditiously pursuing the project and hopefully it will be launched soon and brought up within the stipulated time. However what we would like to emphasize is that we do have many interesting projects floated in the State but after a while there end up in a flop for the reason that necessary maintenance is not made available. This should not happen to the ropeway under discussion. It will be revenue generating mechanism and the system should not be allowed to collapse.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel