4 ‘Region emerged power hub of Northern India under Modi’
Avtar Bhat
KISHTWAR, Oct 23: Accusing the previous regimes of neglecting Kishtwar district for decades together, Union Minister in PMO with Independent Charge of Science and Technology, Dr Jitendra Singh today said that under Narendra Modi Government, Kishtwar has emerged as power hub of Northern India.
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The Union Minister while talking to reporters here today on the sidelines of DISHA meeting and later addressing the BJP meeting made a scathing attack on previous Congress and National Conference (NC) Governments and said that during their regimes in the past there was not a single occasion when the region was not represented both in the State as well as Central Cabinet by senior leaders from this area, but in spite of that the area did not receive the kind of attention it deserves.
He hoped that one day the future historians will seek to analyse the political mindset of these parties which allowed the peripheral region to suffer because of vote bank, caste and religious considerations.
Dr Jitendra Singh accused the earlier Governments of not only being reluctant to initiate new projects but held them responsible for even holding up the ongoing projects. Citing instances, he said, it was Prime Minister, Narendra Modi who launched the Pakal Dul Power Project and it was his intervention which enabled the clearing of decks for starting the Kiru Power Project. Not only this, he said, the Rattle Project had been stalled by earlier Government for frivolous reasons and it has been revived now, as a result of which the Kishtwar would be generating more than 6000 Mega Watt electricity and also providing electricity to the regions outside Kishtwar.
Dr Jitendra Singh urged upon the BJP workers and other like minded people to go to masses and educate them about the series of development projects brought up during the Modi regime and a conscious effort to give equitable treatment to all sections of society regardless of caste, creed or religion. “This is a new political culture which is sought to be introduced in the last eight years wherein the elected representatives including the MPs are expected to serve the cause of every section of society regardless of whether it had voted for them or not”, he added.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, in the past nobody had thought of the hardship and inconvenience that had to be endured by pilgrims during the annual Machail Yatra. He said, it was only after 2014 when he became MP that their cause was taken up and for the first time the toilets were installed enroute the Machail Yatra bringing great relief particularly to women pilgrims and at the same time, mobile towers were brought up in the area while before that the pilgrims on Machail yatra would get totally disconnected from the rest of the word during the entire course of the Yatra.
Dr Jitendra Singh announced that in the course of developing the Machail yatra region, two important decisions have been taken. One, there will be an exclusive 1 MW Solar power plant installed in Machail, secondly Machail will be included in the new tourist circuit, he added.
Dr Jitendra Singh also informed that strict instructions have been issued to give employment in the upcoming power projects only to the local youth and local candidates. However, he said, there have been some complaints but that was due to lack of transparency. Therefore, he had suggested that a Committee of civil society be formed which can coordinate with the Deputy Commissioner for the scrutiny of the appointments being made.
District BJP president, Pradeep Parihar and senior leader Tariq Keen earlier welcomed and profusely praised the Minister for the unprecedented development brought by him.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that the various codal formalities of the Air strip project taken up under Civil Aviation Ministry GOI, has been completed and on visit of the technical team, the project will be finalised.
Dr Jitendra Singh said to give a major flip to the Tourism Sector in the district, the potential areas of tourism like the religious tourism, trekking and mountaineering, adventure tourism and upgradation of camping sites in the district to attract the larger tourist footfall in district.
He announced that areas of Machail, Sarthal will be brought under the tourism circuit on priority basis and linking the tourism sector with the Mission Youth schemes for the larger benefit of youths.
In response to a question, that the district Hospital Kishtwar sans facilities, Dr Jitendra Singh said that no serious exercise was made while establishing the new districts in the erstwhile J&K State by the previous regime. He said the Boards of new district hospitals were installed on the Sub District Hospitals both in Kishtwar and Reasi but parameters were not fulfilled.
He said so far as construction of roads is concerned in the district, the same can be compared with 2014 and one can see a lot of change so far as providing of road infrastructure in the Kishtwar district is concerned.
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