No Asst Engineer for Shahnehar irrigation project in 4 subdivisions

Rajiv Mahajan

Nurpur, February 25

The Shahnehar Irrigation project caters to four subdivisions of the Jal Shakti Department — Sansarpur Terrace, Badukhar, Ghandran and Thakurdwara in Kangra district. It is the largest irrigation project of the state and has a target to irrigate 16,000 hectares in lower Kangra hills.

Rs 400 cr spent on project in 26 years

• In the past 26 years, around Rs 400 crore has been spent on this major project that is irrigating around 12,000 hectares
• The irrigation facility has been provided to 800 hectares in Sansarpur Terrace, 3,500 hectares in Badukhar, 2,500 hectares in Ghandran and 5,000 hectares in Thakurdwara

Surprisingly, the posts of Assistant Engineer (AE) in all subdivisions are lying vacant, while the Jal Shakti Department has given the additional charge of the posts to the AE posted at Fatehpur.

The distance between Thakurdwara and Sansarpur Terrace is 45 km, Thakurdwara and Ghandran 30 km while Ghandran is 15 km from Badukhar. It is a challenging job for the AE posted at Fatehpur to look after four subdivisions.

Around 80 per cent of the irrigated area falls in the Indora Assembly constituency, while over 4,500 hectares in all four subdivisions of the project are still unirrigated as supply lines have not been laid. The Central and state governments will invest in this ambitious project in 70:30 ratio.

The right channel of the project has a total length of around 43 km while the left channel is 40 km long. Its divisional office is at Sansarpur Terrace in the Jaswan-Pragpur Assembly constituency. Resentment is brewing among farmers due to vacant posts of AE in the four subdivisions of the project who are finding it difficult to get even their routine works done. The Jal Shakti Department has not displayed any notice on the boards in the four sub-divisional offices about the availability of the Fatehpur AE, who has been given additional charge.

Daler Singh, Executive Engineer, Shahnehar Project Division, Sansarpur Terrace, says that three AE posts are vacant for the past two years and in Thakurdwara subdivision, the post fell vacant only a fortnight ago. He adds that the higher authorities have been informed time and again about the vacancies.

He says that a detailed project report of Rs 92 crore was submitted to the state government for approval in July last year and the remaining work of laying distribution lines will be undertaken after the detailed project report is approved.