Decade on, Devsar village awaits completion of lift irrigation scheme | KNO

Kashmir News Observer (KNO)

Kulgam, June 25 (KNO): Despite elapsing ten years, the authorities in Irrigation and Flood Control (I&FC) have failed to complete the lift irrigation scheme in Devsar area of South Kashmir’s Kulgam district, thus leaving the local farmers to lurch at large. The local farmers in the area expressed resentment over the non-completion of the scheme from the last one decade and demanded immediate redressal of their grievance. They told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) the farmers here were joyous when the work over the scheme was started, but the non-completion of the project from past ten years have only added to their miseries. Almost 90 per cent of the work is completed while only ten per cent of the work has been delayed for 10 years for unknown reasons, locals said. Ghulam Rasool, a local resident from Kulgam told KNO that the non-serious approach of the concerned department is deteriorating the situation of farmers as thousands of kanals of land have dried up due to unavailability of water. “The department has shown non-seriousness in completing the project on time to ease the difficulties being faced by the farmers,” he said. Meanwhile, the local farmers appealed to the Lieutenant Governor, Girish Chandra Murmu to intervene into the matter. Moreover, Assistant Executive Engineer (AEE) Mechanical, Aijaz Ahmad told KNO that "the scheme is almost in its final stage. Only distribution work is left for which the department has been informed several times.” “The plant will be made functional within a week,” he said—(KNO)