Posted on October 24, 2017
By Irshad Khan, The Kashmit Monitor
A ministerial panel has held the massive Rs 376-crore dredging project in Wular Lake hostage, even as a joint venture of two companies qualifies to work on it.
The 7-member panel of cabinet ministers led by Convener Lal Singh, Minister for Forest, Ecology and Environment (FE&E), was formed by the government over a month ago to take the final call on the proposal for Wular dredging submitted by the FE&E department.
The ministerial panel, reportedly, wanted to “look into the credentials” of Hubei Hongyan Engineering Company Limited, a Chinese firm looking to bag the project along with the Kolkata-based Reach Dredging Limited.
The latter has already been hired by the Irrigation and Flood Control (I&FC) Department to dredge the Jhelum.
The two companies, while putting a joint bid of Rs 376 crore for dredging in the lake, have agreed to pay Rs 201 crore back to the government for the willow trees it will extract from the water body.
An official close to the project told The Kashmir Monitor that the joint venture has “already submitted its technical and financial bids and is fit to be hired”, the project is stuck just as “Lal Singh-led panel does not approve the bids”.
“The panel doesn’t meet. We cannot approve the project until the panel led by Lal Singh and subsequently the state cabinet approves it,” the official said.
Neither Lal Singh nor Chief Executive Director Wular Conservation and Management Authority (WUCMA), Nisar Ahmad Darzi, could be contacted for comments.
The proposed dredging would enhance the carrying capacity of the lake to two crore cubic metres, Coordinator Water Management WUCMA, Irfan Rasool, said.
Source: The Kashmir Monitor
