MHA sanctions construction of 14460 bunkers along JK border

Jammu, Jan 03: The Jammu and Kashmir Government Wednesday informed Legislative Assembly that Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has sanctioned the construction of 14,460 bunkers in the border districts of Jammu.

The government in a written reply to Legislative Assembly informed that the ministry of home affairs government of India has recently vide No. 12013/7/2014-k-v dated 19th/21st December, 2017, conveyed sanction for construction of 14460 bankers for an amount of Rs, 415.73 crore.

The Union Home Ministry has asked the state government to specify the building norms for all areas upto 5km form the border. ‘Priority should be given to bunkers which are nearest to the existing BOP’s,”.

The government has further informed that every bunker will be within 3 Km from the border and first line of sight from IB/LoC (Priority 1 to 0 to 1Km); Priority 2-1 to 2Km; Priority 3-2 to 3 Km).

As per the government reply the MHA has directed for the Jammu and Kashmir government for detailed list containing exact location of large community bunkers and list of individual bunkers meeting the above condition.

‘The Project will be funded on reimbursement basis through SRE (R&B) as it relates to relief and rehabilitation of individuals. It must be ensured that said work has not been funded by any other source/scheme of the government. The work would be executed as per norms. Due procedure would be followed while execution of the above work. For construction of the bunkers, central agency like CPWD, NBCC etc is set to be engaged”.

It is to mention here that Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh during his four-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir on September 9-12 had given nod to construction of 19,000 individual and 4700 community bunkers in five border districts of Jammu region including Jammu, Samba, Kathua (all along the International Border), Rajouri and Poonch districts (both along Line of Control).

Rajnath had asked the State Government to start construction of the bunkers by assuring them that the MHA would bear entire cost of the project and that the Government shouldn’t wait for formal release of amount.