Nearly 8,000 bunkers completed for border residents across Jammu zone

About 8,000 underground bunkers have been completed for the safety of the people living along the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB) in Jammu province, officials said on Sunday.

The Centre has sanctioned the construction of 14,460 individual and community bunkers for the border residents in the five districts of Jammu, Kathua and Samba covering the villages located along the IB and Poonch and Rajouri villages on the LoC.

Later, the government sanctioned over 4,000 additional bunkers to cover a more vulnerable population.

"A total of 7,923 bunkers, including 6,964 individual and 959 community bunkers, have been completed so far in (Jammu) division," an official spokesman said, as Divisional Commissioner Jammu Raghav Langer reviewed the progress on the construction of the safety structures at a meeting here.

There has been no major ceasefire violation over the past three months in Jammu and Kashmir after India and Pakistan signed a fresh agreement to maintain calm along the borders on February 25 this year.

The spokesman said the work is also in progress on 9,905 bunkers which are under different stages of construction.

The deputy commissioners informed that 1,592 bunkers have been completed in Samba, 1,228 in Jammu, 1,521 in Kathua, 2,656 in Rajouri and 926 in Poonch.

Langer took strong note of delay in tendering of pending bunkers and directed the executive engineers concerned to float the tenders afresh for the construction of the bunkers which have not been taken up as yet for their early completion, the spokesman said.

The divisional commissioner also directed the deputy commissioners to personally monitor already executed work, while the executing agencies were asked to expedite the pace of work and adhere to the set timelines for completion.