ET Plus Report
Jammu, Aug 28 : After a gap of more than 18-years, the Jammu Development Authority (JDA) has planned to develop two residential colonies in the outskirts of Jammu city.
JDA has identified around 850 Kanals of land in Kot Bhalwal and Birpur, in which more than 700 people will get residential plots of different sizes.
In last 18 years the population of Jammu increased manifold due to migration because of militancy, particularly from Kashmir, from where both Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims migrated to Jammu and settled here. In addition to there has been huge influx of people from hilly districts of the Jammu region to Jammu city.
The population of Jammu is more than 15-lakh. But the Jammu Development Authority (JDA) has developed only seven colonies till date. Interestingly the most well planned Gandhi Nagar and Shastri Nagar colonies were developed by government in early '60s and '70s. After these, some colonies Trikuta Nagar, Channi Himmat, Roop Nagar and two more colonies were made till 1995. There after it has been complete full stop, which results the proliferation of unauthorized colonies in Jammu.
"Population has increased and people have to live somewhere, so many unauthorized colonies have been developed," said Satish Nehru, Vice Chairman JDA.
"Now we are developing two colonies, one in Birpur in 650 Kanals of land, where more than 500 plots of different sizes will be made, and another is in Kot Bhalwal in 200 Kanals of Land where about 200 people will get plots of different sizes," he added.
On the delay of eighteen years , Nehru said, "Whenever we identify a land, someone comes up with a stay notice from the Court, or some technical problem appears, but hopefully these plots will be available for common people very soon."
JDA assures that these plots will be available by January 2014, the distribution of the plots will be on the lucky draw basis.
Subash Chander Khajuria, a retired Government employee waited for several years for a new government colony to come up.
"Finally I had to buy a private land at Plaoura to construct a house. Though I have a house but there are no basic amenities. There is acute shortage of water and erratic electric supply, no drainage with filth and garbage around."
"It sounds good! If JDA is developing some colonies, they should develop it in a faster way and some more colonies should be developed in and around Jammu in a planned way," he added. |
