Excelsior Correspondent
SAMBA/KATHUA, Feb 27: Minister for PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control, Sham Lal Sharma today conducted day long extensive tour of Samba and Kathua districts to take stock of various projects in the twin districts.
MLA Samba, Yashpaul Kundal, MLA Kathua, Charanjeet Singh, MLA Basohli, Jagdish Raj Spolia, MLC, Subash Gupta, Deputy Commissioner, Samba, Mubarak Singh, Deputy Commissioner, Kathua, Zaheeda Parveen, Chief Engineer, PHE, Ashwani Sharma, Chief Engineer, Irrigation & Flood Control, K.K. Gupta, Chief Engineer, RTIC, Virender Badyal and other officers of these departments accompanied the Minister.
While inspecting the work on check dam at village Taroor in Samba, the Minister directed the concerned engineers to speed up the pace of work and accomplish the project well within the stipulated time frame.
He was apprised that the project was taken up in January 2011 at an estimated cost of Rs. 14.71 crore over river Basanter. This prestigious project will have the total length of 175 mtrs and a storage capacity of 370 acre feet. On completion the dam will irrigate over 500 hectares of kandi belt and also recharge the water table around. While inspecting the Check Dam projects over Wajoo Nullah at village Kokhyal and village Azizpur in Kathua, the Minister directed the Chief Engineer, Irrigaion & Flood Control to immediately settle the land compensation issue and start the work at the earliest. He directed the concerned officers to settle the dispute of land, if any, with the consultation of locals amicably.
Both the check dams over Wajoo Nullah will be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs. 25.85 crore with an irrigation potential of 1731 hectares of area. The discharge capacity of the proposed projects will be over 100 cusecs of water, the Minister was informed.
The Minister also inspected flood protection works along the river Ujh at village Chainpur, which are under execution at an estimated cost of Rs. 41 lakh. He also inspected the Ujh Barrage project and directed the engineers to undertake necessary renovation of the equipment to ensure efficacy of the project.
The Minister also inspected the Ravi Tawi Irrigation Scheme at Lakhanpur, Repair Work of Burni Canal Syphon, Basantpur Lift Irrigation Station in Kathua.
Mr Sham also visited to the proposed site of main Ravi Canal Basantpur to upstream Ranjeet Sagar Dam at village Satwain in Basohli and took stock of the site and assets.
The Minister interacted with the people en-route from Samba to Kathua and listened to their problems relating to the drinking water and irrigation. He directed the officers to attend people’s problems on priority.
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