11 years on Chakoora lift irrigation scheme awaits completion
Pulwama: A mega lift irrigation scheme in Chakoora village of Litter Tehsil in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district is awaiting completion. Besides, the land owners who provided their land for construction of the scheme have alleged that they too have not been offered any compensation by the government.
Locals from Chakoora said the scheme was started after repeated requests to the government and people of the area heaved a sigh of relief as they felt that their decade’s old demand of getting water for irrigation purposes will be fulfilled.
They said that after repeated pleas, the scheme was approved for the area and soon work on said scheme was started.
Since then over a decade has passed but the scheme is nowhere near completion and even whatever structure was constructed there is lying in shambles and can collapse anytime, they said .
They said that around 80 percent of work was completed but it has been suspended for the past four years due to unknown reasons.
In this heat wave, irrigation facilities are must for orchards but in absence of such facilities, most of the orchardists have witnessed damages, they said.
Shahid Ahmad, a local resident said that they don’t have any irrigation facilities available to their orchards due to which they face huge hardships during the summer season and have to rely on rain water only.
‘Many growers cut their almond orchards which require less water and planted apple trees as they expected the scheme will provide them irrigation facilities but that did not happen,” he said.
Locals said that due to unavailability of irrigation facility the trees are drying up and production remains very low.
“We provided land at a very low cost for the scheme but the compensation too was not paid so far,” they said adding, that they have brought the issue into the notice of the concerned officials several times, but to no avail.
Meanwhile, when contacted an official said that scheme awaits completion because of some issues with land donors over compensation.
He said that department was waiting for approval of revised DPR to start to work on the project.
