*Requirement of over 200 concrete
units projected
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Jan 6: As dwellers of the villages along the International Border are continuously facing volatile situation due to firing and shelling from the Pakistan side, Union Ministry of Home Affairs has stepped up exercise to explore all the options to ensure safety of border dwellers during skirmishes between India and hostile neighbor.
In this regard, the Ministry of Home Affairs has sought additional information from the State Home Secretary as well as Jammu divisional administration about the construction of community type bunkers in the border areas, the proposal for which was mooted quite long time back.
Reliable sources told EXCELSIOR that senior authorities in the Ministry of Home Affairs recently dashed a communication to the State authorities seeking detailed information vis-à-vis community type bunkers for the villagers living within one to five kilometer radius from the International Border in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts of Jammu division.
Accordingly, the Home Department in consultation with the Divisional Commissioner Jammu has worked out the information and submitted the same to the Ministry of Home Affairs. “The MHA has sought to know whether community type or individual bunkers would be feasible in order to ensure security of the border dwellers during firing and shelling from across the border by Pakistan rangers”, sources informed.
In response to this query, the State authorities have put weight behind the community type bunkers on the ground that this type of infrastructure would accommodate large number of people that too in their respective villages. In this way, there would not be any requirement of evacuating the people from their respective villages to safer places and then providing all types of facilities like shelter, food, healthcare, electricity, drinking water and sanitation in temporary shelters, which otherwise put burden on Government infrastructure in other areas.
The MHA has been conveyed that construction of community type bunkers would be economical keeping in view huge expenditure involved in running temporary shelters for the affected population, sources said while disclosing that in the month of August last year the administration had to spend Rs 85 lakh for running temporary shelters in nine Government buildings and community halls in R S Pura and Bishnah blocks.
Based on the information received from the Deputy Commissioners of Jammu, Samba and Kathua, the State has projected requirement of 112 such bunkers in Jammu district, 43 in Samba and 70 in Kathua district. “The approximate cost of each bunker has been projected between Rs 4 lakh to Rs 6 lakh with the capacity to accommodate at least 100 people in each”, sources informed.
“Prototype design prepared by the Border Security Force with the support of other concerned agencies has also been sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs along with other necessary information with the mention that each bunker would have all basic facilities”, sources said.
When asked, sources said, it has been projected that such bunkers can be constructed within a period of one year from the date of placement of required funds at the disposal of the concerned agencies, adding “such bunkers, if approved by the MHA, would come up in safe areas in the villages in a radius of one to five kilometer from the International Border”.
The major advantage of such bunkers would be that neither border dwellers will have to be evacuated during the border skirmishes nor routine activities in Government institutions in safe areas would suffer in order to provide shelters to migrants, sources said.
When contacted, Divisional Commissioner Jammu, Shantmanu confirmed that additional information vis-à-vis community type bunkers for border dwellers has been furnished to the Ministry of Home Affairs. “This is the high time to take final decision as during firing and shelling entire administration gets involved in rescue operation, which results into hampering of routine administrative exercise”, he added.
Responding to query, he said that MHA had also sought information about plots to border dwellers in safer zones and the same along with its repercussions were also conveyed to the Ministry. “We are hopeful of early positive decision on the safety of border dwellers”, he added.
Follow our WhatsApp channel