MALU SHARMA
JAMMU: Jagmohan Singh, 45 yr old man has become talk of the town as he has decided to shift his four-storey building 160 ft away from its present location instead of demolishing it for a road-widening project.
Jagmohan Singh, has hired the services of a Haryana-based Company- HSBL Building Solution Pvt Ltd – to do the job. The company has agreed to lift the house from its present location and move it 150-160 ft away from the roadside at a cost of Rs 50-60 lakh.
While talking to STATE TIMES, Jagmohan Singh shared his scentiments that the building is not just made of bricks, concrete, and iron, but carries the memories of his late wife Ravinder Kaur who died during the second wave of Covid-19 in 2021.
My wife had put lot of effort in designing this house. Both of us had put in a lot of sweat and blood in getting our dream house completed over a period of four years. My heart breaks when I came to know that this house will be dismantled owing to the road-widening project between Satwari Chowk and the fourth bridge on River Tawi. The road forms part of the Jammu-Rajouri-Poonch National Highway 144A that joins NH-44 at Kunjwani.
Singh shared his memory “As I could not save my wife, I decided to save her memories which she had left in the form of this house. I started surfing the internet looking for ways to move the building away from the road and I found HSBL and contacted it for the same. I gave the contract and I am happy that I succeeded in saving this house.”
An HSBL employee said they started the work two months ago by first digging deep trenches around the house to reach its foundation. Thereafter, they laid channels, inserted steel beams into the openings, and placed hydraulic jacks beneath them to lift the building by 3 ft. Using lift and move technologies, the workers move the house 2-3 ft every day. They have so far moved the structure 15 ft from the existing road. This whole process will take 3 more months.