After waiting for more than three long months the district administration in frontier Rajouri has set in motion the construction of individual and community bunkers in worst affected villages to motivate villagers camping in relief camps since second week of May 2017.
These villagers were forced by circumstances to shift in relief camps in the aftermath of heavy mortar shelling in the area in the second week of May 2017. Three civilians were killed during the same period while hundreds of live stock perished due to intense shelling. large number of Government school buildings and private residences also bore the brunt of heavy exchange of firing in the area.
In the absence of formal approval of the original proposal, which envisages construction of at least 621 community bunkers @ Rs 6 lakh and 8,197 individual bunkers @ Rs 2.40 lakh, the District Development Commissioner Rajouri has approved a pilot project at the district level for constructing 100 bunkers under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) Convergence.
The local villagers especially unemployed youth from the border areas have been engaged in the construction works.
To begin with the field officers in the worst-affected villages falling close to the loC have identified at least 70 locations and digging work is currently going on across 30-40 locations on ground zero.
Referring to the enormous challenge at hand, District Development Commissioner, Rajouri, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary told The Pioneer, “over 4,000 displaced persons continue to stay put across six relief camps set up by the district authorities.
He said we are spending huge sums of money on organising logistics including ration and other basic amenities.
So we conceived a proposal to channelise our own resources and launched a pilot project. He is quite hopeful the original proposal too would receive formal approval shortly.
“We have sought assistance from the local Army units to assist our work force and ensure their safety in case of any emergency situation during the construction period, " DC Rajouri told The Pioneer.