Pulwama: Even as the four years passed since the Public Health Engineering (PHE) started work on a water supply scheme in Tral village of South Kashmir’s Pulwama district, the authorities have utterly failed to complete the project. 

The delay in completing the project has resulted in immense hardships to the residents.

Residents of Shaldraman and other hamlets in Tral area of South Kashmir’s Pulwama district said that before four years the foundation stone of impounding water reservoir was laid in the area by PHE but the department is yet to complete the reservoir.

According to the official sources, the construction work on the water reservoir was started in the year 2014 with an aim to provide drinking water to over half dozen of villages in Tral sub district.

Official sources added that the villages which were supposed to get water from the water supply scheme include  Nahir , Khasipora, Chatrogam,  Chaan Kitar , Bajwani,  Chewa Ullar,  Diver , Paribal and its adjacent areas.

They added that the allotted amount for the work was Rs. 4758337, and the authorities had set a deadline of 120 days for the completion of the project.

Inhabitants of the area demanded that the reservoir should be completed at the earliest so that they could heave a sigh of relief.

Locals also blamed that the material being used for reservoir so far was not good and sufficient and they complained several times to the concerned authorities but to no avail.

They alleged that the authorities are hand-in-glow with the contractor used substandard material for the reservoir and they hardly will use 40 percent of the allotted cost to complete the scheme.

Meanwhile, after back to back complaints from the people of Shaldraman village, technical team of Civil Society Tral, also visited the spot and have found insufficient and bad quality material for the reservoir.

“We have visited the area to enquire the reservoir work, but unfortunately work done so far seems unfit at all,” one of the technical members of Civil Society Tral said.

People of the area have appealed to the concerned Minister and Chief Engineer to personally look into the matter.

They also demanded to frame a commission that would enquire about the funds and substandard material.

Assistant Executive Engineer (AEE) PHE Tral, Nisar Ahmad Kar told Kashmir Vision that the delay in the project occurred due to the lack of funds.

He added that main components of the reservoir are already completed, only some finishing touches are needed to be done, which will be done very soon.

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