I was around 12 years old, when artificial lake of Jammu was announced, back in year 2009. At that time I didn’t know how a artificial lake looks like.
As I lived in a village therefore seldom get a chance to visit Jammu city, but this idea of artificial lake really fascinated me and aspired to visit Jammu city, when this artificial lake get completed.
Now, its 2021 and I am 23 years old , pursuing my studies from Jammu city itself but my dream of visiting my imagined lake is still a dream. The proposed artificial lake project is still on papers and I really hope to see this lake till I get old.
The auto-mechanically operated gated barrage (AMOGB) at river Tawi, also known as the artificial Tawi lake project was launched in year 2009, by the Congress-NC government. The foundation stone was laid by the then chief Minister Omar Abdullah on 5 December 2009, and initially it was targeted to complete in 2012 but unfortunately it missed this deadline.
And after missing the first deadline, this project has further passed five other deadlines in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Finally government cancelled the contract of GR Infra Projects Limited in June 2019 because of unfulfillment of this project.
The poor execution of the contract drawn attention from the government side and in 2020 last year, government ordered a probe into this matter and a revised detailed project was framed, according to which Rs 51.57 crores was to be required to complete this project and Rs 4.97 crores to undo the damages caused due the floods.
As per the project plan, an auto mechanical barrages would have been constructed on the river Tawi, one kilometer downstream of the main Tawi bridge and in the phase second the beautification and embankment work was proposed and for that MoU was also signed by Jammu development authority (JDA) and Sabarmati River Front Corporation (SRFDC).
More than 57 crores wasted on this so far, this much hyped project remains in plans till now and it seems like this dream project will remain a dreams for many jammunities. Had this 1,500-metre-long and 600- metres wide artificial lake competed, this would have given a new dimension to the city and tourism of the region but continued delays and indifference of the authorities has left this project in limbo.
The writer of this article, Shubham Sharma is a student of Journalism at Central University of Jammu
