Ujh multipurpose project in disarray

Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, July 14

The ambitious Rs 5,850-crore Ujh multipurpose project in Kathua district appears to be in a complete disarray as the state’s public health engineering (PHE) Department seems to be clueless on the lifting of 10 million gallon water (MGD) water for the parched Kandi belt of the region.

No major progress has been made on the project in the past six months despite the Union Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) clearing its revised detailed project report (DPR) in January this year.

The project, to be built on river Ujh which is the main tributary of river Ravi, has been planned to stop the flow of unutilised river waters from flowing into Pakistan territories and use it for irrigation, power generation and drinking water in India itself. The project will store around 0.65 MAF of waters to irrigate 31,380 hectares and produce more than 200 MW of hydropower.

“The lifting of 10MGD water for drinking purpose is one of the major components of this project, but the PHE authorities are yet to prepare any plan as to how will they lift and store water to cater to nearly 5.22 lakh population of the Kandi areas in Kathua district alone,” a source said, adding “The PHE authorities should have shown some seriousness to get rid of the persistent water shortage problem confronting the Kandi belt.”

A senior officer of PHE department, however, claimed that the drawings and alignment for the lifting of water and its storage for further use was to be used to be prepared by the Irrigation Department duly approved by the Central Water Commission (CWC).

“We have no idea as to what will be the alignment for the lifting of water and the place where the reservoirs for storage are to be built. We will lift water from the canals to be used for irrigation purpose,” the officer said, adding “they will be able to lift only 5.12 MGD water from the project. The supply of water to areas upstream Jammu-Pathankot highway will be a major challenge for us”.

The authorities had been confronted with a major problem of utilising cent per cent water of river Ujh for drinking, power generation and irrigation purposes with “the sole motive to restrict its flow into Pakistan”.

Suresh Subarwal, Superintending Engineering, hydraulic circle, Kathua, claimed that they had called tenders for consultancy purpose. “Two different canals will be built by the Irrigation Department from where we will lift the water,” he said.