New Delhi: Union minister Jitendra Singh on Thursday said the Shahpur Kandi national project will create tourism potential and improve the socio-economic conditions of the people of the border areas in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab.
The project, which is coming up along the border between Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab, will become functional by November 2022, he said.
“The Shahpur Kandi dam project aims to utilise the full water of the Ravi river in the Indian territory. Almost 63 per cent work of the main dam has been completed and, on its completion, the Shahpur Kandi dam project shall provide intensive irrigation facilities in 32,000 hectares of area falling in the districts of Kathua and Samba (in Jammu and Kashmir) and 5,000 hectares in Punjab’s Pathankot district,” Singh, the Minister of State for Personnel, said.
The dry or less irrigated zone, which was traditionally referred to as the “Kandi” belt, will no longer be known as Kandi and the future generations will not even be aware of this expression, he said.
The minister said the project will hopefully start giving water through gravity to Jammu and Kashmir through the Ravi canal, which shall help uplift the socio-economic status of the people of the region.
“It will also create tourism potential and improve the socio-economic conditions of the people in this border area,” Singh, the Lok Sabha member from Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur, said.
The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had, in December 2018, approved the implementation of the Shahpur-Kandi dam project.
