| Shiva Colony craves for development, Swachata Abhiyan | | BJP, Cong ignored area during their rule | |  Early Times Report
Jammu, June 19: Deplorable road, water logged pits and earth touching live electricity cables. Welcome to Shiva Colony of Gangyal.
The residents say they have been fighting for development of their locality since 1999. In last 20 years, the number of families residing in the area has reached from 35 to 150 35 families. But except the number of the families in the area nothing has changed yet, the residents told Early Times.
The locals they have approached various agencies engaged in development, but the ground reality depicts ignorance on the part of the administration in the area.
Showing details of their efforts which they made in the last two decades, Jagdish Chander, a local resident, said that two years ago a one kilometer stretch was blacktopped, but in the absence of maintenance works, the road is in shambles.
Late Vaid Vishno Dutt, the then Member Parliament, "provided funds for road, and it was first and last development activity in our area", they said and added that all of the residents keep roaming in the night as they cannot sleep due to power fluctuation in scorching heat.
Angrez Singh, a senior citizen of the area, said that they have gathered over two kilograms of papers (applications) written to officers seeking road, water, electricity and other amenities.
"But unfortunately, our efforts have yielded nothing positive for us due to indifference of the administration towards us", he said and added that they have met from Executive Engineers, Commissioner JMC to Advisors to Governor, but to no avail.
Swarn Singh, president Shiva Colony Welfare Committee, said that last year MLC Vikram Randhava "assured us to provide Rs 10 lakh for the development of their locality. But unfortunately, he backtracked and did not fulfil his promise." He said they even met Member Parliament Jugal Kishore last year and submitted a memorandum to him, "but he also did nothing."
Lalilt Patwari, another resident of Shiva Colony, said that they submitted complaint of their deplorable road, damaged cable and streetlight with the JK Grievance Cell under the banner of Shiva Colony Welfare Committee. "But like previous efforts with other agencies it left us disappointed. Except forwarding our complaint to concerned office, the cell did not nothing and the concerned office, it seems, did not bother to even to go through our complaints", he said, adding that they filed their complaint with the cell in July 2018.
Ramesh Choudhary, another resident of the area, said that they even met Governor's Advisor Khurshid Ganae in August 2018, who forwarded their list of issues to concerned agencies, "but existing condition of our locality shows that the concerned officers did not bother to obey the Advisor's directions."
"Even the JMC authorities made a proposal for various works in the area, but it seems that they have forgotten that they have promised us, something we are waiting for years", he added.
The residents also lamented the fact that both the BJP and the Congress grossly ignored the locality during their respective tenures while ruling the state. |
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