J&K’s 1st smart village will rise from its ruins

The hutments have been constructed as part of the first phase of the smart village project, which will be completed by mid-2016, he added.

“Infact, history is going to be made in a way that a village totally washed by floods has not been only adopted by us, but then in order to set an example we thought to build it as an ideal village and give it the nomenclature of a smart village,’’ Singh said, adding, “Now as India marches to an era of smart towns and villages, the first smart village in Jammu and Kashmir would be built on the ruins of a flood-hit village.”

Hailing the contribution of Love Care Foundation, an NGO, and the support of various other corporate houses in completion of the project, the Union Minister said that his resources through MPLAD funds would not have been enough to build this village as he had already adopted three other villages under the Saansad Adrash Gram Yojna at Sangwali in Hiranagar and Khaleni in Doda district, besides a third one in Kishtwar.

The corporate supporters include Concentric, Fanuc India and Bhushan Power & Steel.

Forty people were killed after landslides triggered by heavy rain buried Saddal on September 6 last year. The downpour led to the worst ever flood in the state in the last 60 years.

Noting that he decided to develop Panjar-Saddal village after taking a cue from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s concept about smart villages and towns in the country, Singh said nearly 5,000 residents were affected in the landslides last year. While nearly half of them had shifted to Udhampur, the remaining stayed back and tried to build some hutments near Kasuri.