Ensuring safety security at border residents, J&K races against time to complete construction of bunkers

Srinagar, December 25: As the tension along the Line of Control between India and Pakistan escalates, the civil authorities in Jammu & Kashmir are racing against time to complete construction work of ‘individual’ and ‘community bunkers’ to ensure safety and security of affected border residents. Out of sanctioned number of 14,460 bunkers, the civil authorities have managed to construct 5538 bunkers, which is less than 40 percent of the total number.

 

Construction work of 14460 bunkers were approved at a cost of Rs 415.73 crore for border residents facing Pakistani shelling in Jammu division. A total of 13,029 individual bunkers and 1431 community bunkers were sanctioned to accommodate border residents during cross border firing. The most affected Poonch district fared badly as construction work of only 449 bunkers out of 1320 have been completed. In the recent weeks, Pakistan army has targeted civilian areas across different sectors of Poonch using heavy calibre of weapons. Panic stricken residents, left with no option, have to spend time inside their temporary structures to protect their children and livestock.

Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioners also apprised the Divisional Commissioner that 1234 bunkers including community and individual bunkers have been completed in district Samba, 918 in district Jammu, 1193 in district Kathua, 1744 in district Rajouri, 449 in district Poonch. “They further informed that remaining bunkers are also under different stages of construction. The concerned officers informed about the number of bunkers at foundation level, superstructure level, and slab level”.

The Divisional Commissioner directed the DCs for monitoring the construction of bunkers and also directed the executing agencies to expedite the pace of work for timely completion of construction of individual and community bunkers at the earliest. The meeting was attended by Deputy Commissioner Samba Rohit Khajuria, Deputy Director Planning Chaman Lal, Chief Planning Officer Jammu, Joginder Katoch, besides executive engineers of executing agencies while Deputy Commissioner, Kathua, Rajouri, Poonch along with concerned officers attended the meeting through video conferencing.

Sharing progress report of construction work of bunkers, District Development Commissioners of five districts, informed Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, Sanjiv Verma, “a total number of 5538 bunkers have been completed so far in the division including 5035 individual bunkers and 503 community bunkers”.