The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Two decades gone, power project yet to take off
Shariq Majeed/Tribune News Service

Surankote (Poonch), May 21
At a time when the state government is making all-out efforts to tap hydel power potential of various rivers, a power project here awaits its completion even after about two decades. The work on the 39-MW Parnai Project was started in early nineties but even as the execution of this project was stopped due to militancy, residents say no government ever bothered to restart the work even as militancy started to witness a downwards trend.

Sources in the power development corporation, which is the executing agency for the project, said two civil construction divisions and one mechanical division were constituted for the project in the early nineties. In 1995-96, four buildings for accommodating staff were constructed at Draba besides some portion of the road from Bata Durian near Mendhar - from where the water was to flow down the slope - to the power house located at Harni was constructed, they added.

Sources further said pre-qualification tenders for constructing the four-bay tank and penstock besides construction of a powerhouse and a tunnel were readied by the agency concerned. "However, the work on the project was stopped due to militancy,” they said.

The residents said even though the agency did raise some infrastructure and brought some machinery for the project, it stopped the work after the militancy raised its ugly head. “This project would have changed our fortunes. On the one hand, it would have supplied power to almost the entire district, on the other, since the water after electricity production was to flow through irrigation canal into dry land of Mendhar, it would have resulted in good agricultural production,” Imtiyaz Bandey, a local leader, said. “However, even as militancy has dwindled from the region, the government has failed to re-start the work on the project. We have even requested Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to help," the residents of the area said.

Meanwhile, showing ignorance on the power project, power minister Babu Singh told The Tribune that he did not have any details of the project.