Minister for PHE Sukhnandan Kumar Choudhary today reviewed the status of Tawi Barrage project also known as Artificial Lake project at a high level meeting convened here today.Senior functionaries of PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control, UEED, R&B and Tourism departments, besides district administration Jammu attended the meeting.Before the meeting the Minister and senior functionaries visited the site of the project to take on spot stock of the works done.The Minister said that the Barrage-cum-Lake project would be constructed as per the plan and bottlenecks, if any would be removed at the earliest. He asked the irrigation department to proceed ahead by taking into consideration all the technicalities to avoid any problems in its completion. He also asked different departments to work in close coordination to start the allied works, like construction of protection walls on the right and left side of Nikki Tawi.The JKPCC was also asked to take up the repair work of the damaged portion of the Tawi bridge approach road. The R&B department would be constructing the protection wall on left bank of Nikki Tawi from upstream of head regulator.
The Minister asked the concerned departments to complete their respective works to facilitate the completion of the Barrage and Pondage of Artificial Lake. He said the pace of allied works would be expedited by arranging sufficient funds.The Minister also directed the UEED to complete the construction works to drain the 15 nallahs flowing in the River Tawi from old Jammu city.Reviewing beautification work around the barrage, he exhorted upon Tourism department to expedite the work on the development of park being constructed over an area of 45 acres of land.Commissioner Secretary PHE Parvez Malik, DC Jammu Simrandeep Singh, Chief Engineer Irrigation Rajeev Gandotra, Chief Engineer PHE Prem Nath, Chief Engineer R&B Alok Mehngi, Chief Engineer FC Hem Jeerath, SE Rajeev Malhotra and other officers of these departments attended the meeting.