Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 14: In yet another “cruel joke” with the people of historic Jammu city, the government has seemingly “dumped in cold store” the long-awaited artificial Tawi lake project for the winter capital and now the administration would focus on the beautification of the banks of the river, instead.
Sources said that at the recently held meeting to review completion of prestigious projects in Jammu and Srinagar, the issue of long-awaited Tawi artificial lake was even not discussed.
Sources said on February 4, Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, called for executing the ambitious projects in Jammu and Kashmir expeditiously.
The Lt Governor while chairing a high level meeting of Administrative Secretaries, experts on Smart City Projects and other stakeholders here at Civil Secretariat here, stressed on timely completion of the projects.
Official documents reveal that during the meeting, the experts from Sabarmati River Front Development Corporation Ltd explained the details and gave suggestions for development of Tawi River Front on the lines of Sabarmati River Front, besides flood control measures to be taken.
“But there was no mention about the resumption of the work on artificial lake,” said a senior official on the condition of anonymity.
He alleg Peechai Tchod, Aage Dord!
“One thing is clear if the work on artificial lake is not completed during the tenure and the dynamic and upright Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, the project will never be completed,” said some officials hailing from Jammu on the condition of anonymity.
On February 24 2020, the Jammu and Kashmir government had ordered a probe into the poor execution of the contract of an auto-mechanically operated gated barrage (AMOGB) at River Tawi, also known as the artificial Tawi lake project.
A year on, neither the inquiry has seemingly reached the logical conclusion nor the project work has been resumed.
“The completion of inquiry should have fixed lapses and led to resumption and completion of the pending work, but here no such development took place,” said a senior official on the condition of anonymity.
In June 2019, the government had cancelled GR Infra Projects Limited''s contract for developing the artificial Tawi lake.
The three-member panel was scheduled probe the matter and submit a report before the government in a month.
The project was launched in 2009 by the Congress-NC government.
It was marred by delays, missing as many as six deadlines, before work came to a standstill in 2018. | 