Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 11: District Development Commissioner (DDC) Jammu, Simrandeep Singh along with Additional District Development Commissioner (ADDC) Anuradha Gupta today reviewed the progress of two mission mode projects of “construction of community bunkers” in the border areas and “construction of boundary walls in Government schools” being executed by district administration.
The meeting was attended by all the Block Development Officers (BDOs) of the district.
The bunkers are being constructed in the border blocks of Arnia, R S Pura, Suchetgarh, Mandal, Marh, Pargal, Akhnoor, Samwan and Khour. It was revealed in the meeting that community bunkers are being constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 5 lakh per bunker and the project involves construction of 97 bunkers—37 under the District BADP Plan and 60 under a special pilot project of Union Ministry of Home Affairs being funded under Security Related Expenditure (SRE).
It was further informed that 37 bunkers under BADP Plan have already been constructed and handed over to community for usage during the border shelling. Similarly, 10 bunkers under MHA pilot project have been completed and handed over.
The remaining 50 bunkers which are at advanced stage of construction will be completed by December 25, 2016 and will be handed over to the community. The District Development Commissioner was informed by the BDOs that the issue of water logging has been resolved in all the bunkers by adopting different methods like creation of drainage, waterproofing and even raising the plinth by way of hydraulic lifting.
It was informed that all the completed bunkers were optimally utilized during the recent border shelling and against a capacity of 20 per bunker some of the bunkers in Suchetgarh sector accommodated 80 people in a single bunker.
As far as project of boundary walls is concerned, the district administration had taken up construction of 172 boundary walls on mission mode in Middle, High and Higher Secondary Schools having a minimum enrolment of 20 students.
Under this project, 18 schools in Nagrota block, 17 in Chowki Choura, 15 in Bhalwal, 18 in Khara Balli, 12 in Mathwar, 12 in Dansal, 13 in Marh, 11 in Akhnoor and remaining in other blocks of the district were chosen for construction of boundary walls.
“The entire project is estimated to cost Rs 10.50 crore which is being carried out under convergence mode by dovetailing funds from MGNREGA, District Capex Plan, BADP, contributions from MLAs/MLCs”, District Development Commissioner said, adding the Punjab National Bank has also contributed some funds as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) partner.
Started in June 2016, 55 boundary walls have already been constructed while as 20 boundary walls will be finished by December 2016 and remaining will be concluded by March 2017. The project was envisaged with the objectives of preventing encroachments on the lands of Government schools besides giving a sense of privacy and discipline to the students.
The DDC appreciated the BDOs who had timely concluded the projects and urged upon others to finish the remaining works in a time-bound manner.
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