Shahabad or Bahu Fort Cable Car Project!;PDP-BJP Govt puts ‘breaks’ on mega project over nomenclature fight
According to well placed sources, the BJP wanted the project to be known by its already existing ‘Mubarak Mandi-Bahu Fort’ name but the PDP, which is in alliance with the saffron brigade wanted it to replace as ‘Shahabad Cable Car Project’.
“The fight over nomenclature has finally put”breaks” on the project, which was scheduled to be completed by March 2018 but it is further going to be lingered due to non-agreement of both the coalition partners on giving final nod to its name,” sources here said.
Sources however, said that for BJP and the people of Jammu as well, the project may be familiar as ‘Mubarak Mandi-Bahu Fort’ but in papers, the works on the project are being executed as ‘Shahabad Cable Car Project’.
“In one of the recently issued notifications by the project executing agency, Jammu and Kashmir State Cable Car Corporation Limited, a tender has been invited for the work with a mention in an order reading as ‘Construction of wall on entry side of Shahabad Station of Jammu Cable Car Project at Shahabad, Jammu’, clears the dust from many queries,” sources added.
“One must understand that the BJP government has fully surrendered before the ruling PDP and Bahu Fort Cable Car Project is one of the major examples that they cannot even press the ruling PDP to let the existing name of the project continue,” sources asserted.
They, however, alleged that PDP does not want to tourism to flourish in Jammu as situation in Kashmir is already tense and it is having an upper edge in tourism sector.
“The Valley last year witnessed low footfall due to Kashmir unrest, triggered after July 8 with elimination of self styled Hizb terrorist Burhan Wani following which the tourists shifted to Jammu,” sources said, adding that the Kashmir centric successive governments in the state always projected Kashmir to the outside world and neglected Jammu but the attempts are still on by such forces by such exercises in ‘black and white’.
“Once the project is completed, it will give a boom to tourism industry in Jammu, which is hardly being digested by the PDP-led government and thus BJP is equally a partner to it,” they rued.
Interestingly the Mubarak Mandi-Bahu Fort Cable Car Project in Jammu does not even find any mention on the official website of the Jammu and Kashmir Cable Car Corporation (JKCCC) – www.jkccc.com.
The project was conceived in 1996 during the tenure of Farooq Abdullah as Chief Minister. However, it is yet to see the light of the day.
To be constructed at a revised cost of over Rs 30 crore, the ropeway project across the Tawi will connect Mubarak Mandi with the Bahu Fort but till date, only two pillars have been erected on the banks of the Tawi under the project.
The JKCCC website has no information on tourist resorts and cable