District administration Doda today joined the nation for celebrating 69th Republic Day with zeal and patriotic enthusiasm by organizing a scintillating function here at Sports stadium. Minster of State for Forest, PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control, Zahoor Ahmed Mir unfurled the tricolor and inspected guard of honour and took salute at the March past presented by contingents of J&K police, IR 5th Batallion, CRPF 76 Bn, Forest Protection Force, Home guards and school children.MLA Doda Shakti Raj Parihar, MLA Batmaloo Noor Mohammad Sheikh, Former Minister Abdul Majeed Wani, DDC Doda Bhawani Rakwal, SSP Doda Mohd Shabir Khatana besides other senior officers and prominent citizens were present on the occasion.In his address Mir Zahoor greeted the people of Doda on 69th Republic day and appealed the public to follow the footsteps of eminent personalities and visionaries of the nation. He said that the coalition govt under the leadership of CM Mehbooba Mufti is taking every possible step to provide better facilities to the people at their doorsteps and a number of initiatives have been taken up to create infrastructure and bring rural districts at par with rest of the state.
The Minister reiterated that with the constant efforts of the coalition govt, work on 5 new medical colleges, including one here at Ghat Doda has been started . He said a good network of road connectivity is a must for development for which blacktopping of all the major roads of the district is going on. To benefit weaker sections, a number of schemes like LADLI Beti, Atal Pension Yojana, AASRA, Old age pension scheme, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed Food Entitlement schemes, he added.Elaborating on the overall development scenario of the district, the minister said that an amount of Rs 172.14 crore has been released under District plan for the year 2017-18 out of which about 80% of expenditure has been made till date.
In education sector, the minister informed that Rs 12.36 crores have been sanctioned for the construction of Degree College Kilhotran Bhallessa and out of the released amount of 3.03 crores, an amount of Rs 2.65 crores have been utilised till Nov 2017. He said under sports sector, the govt has sanctioned Rs 4.73 crores to boost various sports activities in the district and by Nov 2017 Rs 3.55 crores have been spend on it.Expressing happiness over the position of Health sector, the minister said that the construction work of newly sanctioned Medical college at Ghat has been started besides govt is in the process of spending Rs 50 crores for work of other hospitals in the district including 100 bedded hospital at Gandoh. He said as out of the released amount of Rs 23.55 crores, 21.30 crores have been utilised so far.
Re-counting other developments projects in the district, he said that with an estimated cost of Rs 16.61 crores, the construction work of Mini-Secretariat at Doda under STF is in progress and out of the released amount of 10 crore, Rs 6.51 crore have been utilised till Nov 2017.He further informed that under PHE sector the govt is going to spend Rs 38.12 crore and 38.04 crore to augment water supply schemes in Doda and Bhaderwah towns respectively.Later a scintillating cultural programme was presented by the students from various govt and private schools of the district.Similar celebrations were held in other parts of the district including Bhaderwah where ADC Imam Din unfurled the national flag and took salute of march past contingents at Boys Higher Secondary School Bhaderwah.