Danishwar Hameed
Residents of Kulgam town are up in arms against the JK admin for having failed to repair the street lights in the south Kashmir town non-functional for the past several months.
Despite having reached all possible offices, the residents said, the town continues to scare the commuters at night time.
“After dusk, walking on the streets is a nightmare. There is hardly any activity on the streets, at least people do not come out to walk on these streets which has also impacted the business activity in the south Kashmir town a great deal,” a local shopkeeper told The Kashmiriyat.
He said that the town looks like a ghost town post evening and poses a great threat to the security of people in general. “women are hesitant to come out on the streets as it gets really scary, anything is hardly visible in the town,” he said.
Several citizens have reached several administrative offices for the redressal of their issue, however, so far the issue has not been resolved and the residents of the town continue to suffer.
The Kashmiriyat spoke to the Municipal Council, Kulgam chairman who said that the streetlights in the town do not fall under the MC Kulgam domain. “Though my office has also approached the higher ups several times for the issue to be resolved, but the issue remains unaddressed. He said that the R&B and the PDD Department have been consulted several times, but to no avail,” the chairman said.
Upon being contacted the Chief Engineer of the Power Development Department said that he would check if the issue falls under the Department’s domain. However, he did not receive any calls after that.
Officials of the R and B Department did not receive calls despite several attempts. However, it seemed that there hardly have been any efforts to resolve the issue over these months.
An official told The Kashmiriyat that State Vigilance Organization (SVO) in the year 2010 registered a case against the officials of the Roads and Buildings department along with four contractors for abusing their official positions in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy for the works executed for “Providing and fitting of street lights” in Kulgam town which involved 21 sub-works both civil and electrical.
The contract involved 21 “manipulation of assignment orders” for grossly inflated prices that were allegedly issued by the then Executive Engineer (R&B) Electric Division Kashmir in the year 1999, costing the state exchequer a loss of Rs. 18,65,252/-.
The allegations that members of the (R&B) Special Sub Division Kulgam had abused their positions of authority and misappropriated funds intended for the project “Providing and fitting of street lights” in the town of Kulgam in the 2004–2005 fiscal year were verified. In order to provide and install 2′ inch dia GI pipes and 25mm square 3.5 core cable, respectively, excess payments of Rs. 1,68,000 and Rs. 56,000 totaling Rs. 2,24,000 were dishonestly drawn and misappropriated by the aforementioned accused public servants working with contractors (beneficiaries), the official claimed.
According to him, the state exchequer suffered a loss of Rs. 23,92,252 as a result of the accused public employees’ dishonest and fraudulent use of record-manipulation techniques during the execution of the aforementioned projects, as well as their collaboration with other accused contractors.