Jammu: Prime Minister Narendra Modi accorded the highest priority to the Shahpur-Kandi dam project as it has the potential to irrigate thousands of acres of agricultural land in Jammu and Kashmir, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Sunday.
On September 8, 2018, Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab signed an agreement to resume work on the Shahpur-Kandi dam project, which had been hanging fire for the last 40 years.
The project, once completed, would help reduce the quantum of India’s share of the Ravi’s water flowing into Pakistan.
“Had Narendra Modi not become the prime minister in 2014, the Shahpur-Kandi dam project — that was stalled for 70 years — would not have resumed,” Singh, the Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office said at a public meeting at Basohli in Kathua district, which is part of his Udhampur parliamentary constituency.
Singh said Modi gave the highest priority to the project as it has the potential to irrigate 4,000 acres of agricultural land in the area.
He also said Basohli will be developed as a ‘heritage town’ and ‘aroma start-up destination’ in the coming years.
“Basohli was neglected by previous governments. Thus, a development deficit is still seen in the Kandi area. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over in 2014, the priority has been to bring the left-out areas into the development mainstream to end the development-deficit syndrome,” he said.
Reiterating Modi’s vision of creating a “Viksit Bharat & Viksit Jammu and Kashmir”, the minister said the government is focussed on the poor, farmers, youth and women empowerment.
“The poor, farmers, youth and the ‘Nari Shakti’ have been empowered through various government welfare schemes as this government believes in the ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas’ mantra,” he said.
In terms of road and highways development, Singh said north India’s first ever cable-stayed bridge — the Atal Setu — and Jammu and Kashmir’s first inter-state bridge at Keerian-Gandyal have been the cornerstones of development never imagined by anyone.
“The Aroma Mission has been started by neighbouring states such as Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. As this constituency has been the birthplace of the purple revolution, Basohli must not shy away from starting lavender cultivation as this can increase manifold the incomes of agriculturists of the area,” he said.
