STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Minister for PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control, Sham Lal Choudhary on Tuesday informed the House that the Centre has enhanced the fund allocation for the State under National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP).
He further informed, “During the year 2015-16, the state government was allocated Rs 199.40 crore as against preceding year’s allocation of Rs. 474 crore by the central government under NRDWP. The allocation for the current financial year has been enhanced to Rs 227.50 crore along with State share to the tune of Rs 54.25 crore against Rs. 6.50 during 2015-16.”
He was responding to a question raised by Vikar Rasool Wani on the floor of the House.
Meanwhile, the Minister said that some traditional water resources have been affected due to construction of Railways and four lane tunnels in Reasi and Ramban. An amount of Rs 2.93 crore has been received from the Railways authorities for district Reasi as compensation. For district Ramban, a DPR amounting to Rs. 4.56 crore has been submitted to the concerned construction companies through District Development Commissioner, Ramban for tapping alternate source of water supply schemes affected by the construction activities, he added.
He further informed that Bankoot, Nowgam, Thether, Chapnari/Amkoot Thachi, Khari, Sumber and Manjoose areas have been affected due to the railway construction activities. The government has submitted the DPR to the concerned agencies for providing funds and these would be utilised for tapping alternate/additional water sources, he stressed.
Shah Mohammad Tantray, Sheikh Ishfaq Jabbar, Mian Altaf Ahmed and Er Sheikh Abdul Rashid also raised supplementary questions on the matter.