Anantnag: More than 12 years after they were sanctioned, four major water supply schemes to cater to 75 to 80 villages here in Anantnag district are nowhere near completion, as work on them was abandoned soon after it started 8 years ago.
The contractors for these projects are yet to receive payments for work done on these schemes and are, therefore, uninterested in working any further on them.
Undertaken under the National Rural Drinking Water Program (NRDWP), these water supply schemes are named after the areas of Dachnipora, Shangus, Watnar and Tantraypora. They were sanctioned in 2008 when the National Conference (NC)-Congress coalition was in power in Jammu & Kashmir.
The estimated cost of these schemes was Rs 25.42 crore, Rs 18.90 crore, Rs 32.85 crore, and Rs 28.48 crore, in the order cited above.
“These schemes were announced amid much pomp and show and were aimed at providing potable drinking water to thousands of people, who still remain dependent on streams and other contaminated water sources to fulfil their drinking water needs,” a highly placed source in the Jal Shakti department told Kashmir Reader.
The source said that the work was taken up in 2012, four years after the projects were sanctioned. “The tenders were floated and the contractors were upbeat. However, soon the funds started drying up, and the payments to the contractors were never made,” the source said.
After the contractors abandoned work, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition did not take any pains to get the work started again.
“Ever since, almost no work has been done on the projects,” the source said.
Residents of villages that the schemes were meant to reach are not aware of the problem of funds, but they do blame the PDP-BJP dispensation for abandoning the projects. “They did not want to complete the projects because it would allow the NC-Congress to take credit for it,” a resident of Shangus village in Anantnag district said.
The official sources insist that it was because the funds dried up that the authorities were forced to suspend work. “The Dachnipora supply scheme, for example. On that scheme the contractors had done work worth more than 2.5 crore rupees but not even a crore was released in payments. They were forced to stop the work midway,” the source told Kashmir Reader.
The Superintending Engineer (SE) Hydraulic Circle for Anantnag, Ghulam Ahmad Hajam, said that he did not know about the present status of the schemes.
“I have joined recently and I have no idea,” Hajam told Kashmir Reader.
The Executive Engineer Bijbehara circle, Muhammad Hanief, said that work had been restarted on the Shangus scheme.
“As far as the rest of the schemes are concerned, some of the components have already been completed on those as well. For the other components, fresh DPRs have been made and tenders will be floated soon,” Hanief told Kashmir Reader.
Asked if the contractors were paid any money, Hanief maintained that the department was expecting payments, “and they will be paid accordingly.”

Suhail A Shah