Excelsior Correspondent
POONCH, Feb 22: The people are facing lot of problems due to non-completion of the bridge at village Suiyan in border area of Mendhar in district Poonch for the last over eight years.
The Roads and Building (R&B) Department has failed to complete the construction of this bridge on Sudhwala-Suiyan road in Dhargloon area of Mendhar even after laying foundation stone by the then R&B Minister from Congress, Abdul Majeed Wani. Missing several deadlines, the construction of the bridge was started in June 2013 at an estimated cost of Rs 54 lakh and was supposed to be completed in March 2015. But it still remains incomplete.
The locals of area Mohammd yakoob, Murtaza Ahmed told the EXCELSIOR that despite jumping many deadlines, the Government is yet to complete the project. It has made the people to face inconvenience of all sorts. They alleged that the work has been going on at snail’s pace while people continued to suffer and take other routes in the area due to flood and border shelling.
Rehman Khan, a local at Suiyan said it is a completely a failure of the Government. People living in the area extended cooperation to the authorities but they have failed to complete the project within the stipulated time, he said.
“The bridge was to be completed in 2015 but the deadline was extended to 2018. We don’t know whom to blame. A decade has passed since the work on the bridge was started and it is still incomplete,” he added.
Local people say that there is continuous shelling from Pakistan side. “Shells fall on our side, but today we have been ignored by the Government. We have various administrative officials including District Development Commissioner Poonch, Sub Divisional Magistrate Mendhar, but no solution has been found to our problems. Once we demonstrated about the problem, at that time we were assured that the solution would come out soon.
The people have urged upon the Lt Governor Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir to intervene and ensure early completion of this bridge project.
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