Govt contradicts Jitendra’s word on smart village tag for Saddal

Jammu, March 27

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Two months after Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in Prime Minister’s Office, had announced that the flood-hit Saddal-Panjar hamlet in Udhampur district would be developed as the first “smart village” of J&K, the ruling PDP-BJP coalition has said the Union Minister had not approved or identified the village under the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana.

Jitendra Singh represents the Kathua-Udhampur-Doda seat in the Lok Sabha.

Replying to a question by Congress legislator Jugal Kishore on whether the Saddal village in Udhampur district and Ders/Seri village in Reasi district have been approved for model or smart village on the announcement of the MP concerned yesterday, Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Abdul Haq Khan said: “No such village has been approved under the the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana or identified by the Member Parliament.”

At least 40 people were buried alive after a massive landslide hit the Saddal village in September last year. On January 23, Jitendra Singh had announced that the newly built village (Saddal) would have all the amenities which were available in a smart village or a smart town.

The minister had said this after handing over 40 newly constructed hutments to the affected families.

“For the first time in fact history is going to be made in a way that a village totally washed by floods has not been only adopted by us but then in order to set an example we thought to build it as an ideal village and give it the nomenclature of a smart village,” Singh had said. — TNS