Jammu, Apr 07: Jammu would be declared a Smart City in June this year as many works under the Smart City Project – Jammu Smart City Limited (JSCL) – have been completed, while the remaining works would be completed by June, officials said.
They said 35 works have so far been completed in Jammu out of the total 78 works under the Smart City Project., adding that the rest of the ongoing work would be completed by or before June this year.
In this regard, General Manager, Jammu Smart City Limited (JSCL), Ashish Anand, told Rising Kashmir that all the works, barring a few, under the Smart City Project in Jammu would be completed by June this year.
“Yes, 35 works under the Smart City Project have been completed in Jammu,” General Manager confirmed, adding, “The remaining ongoing works would be completed by June”.
Meanwhile, officials informed that out of the 78 works under the Smart City Project, at least 8 big works are unlikely to be completed by June.
Upon this, Ashish said, “Yes, there are around 8 ongoing works which might not be completed by June.” He, however, added, “No work out of the 78 works will exceed the specified timeline.”
These eight big works under the Smart City Project would be completed by October 2023, he said, adding that the specified time period for completion of the Smart City Project in J&K is October 2023.
General Manager further informed, “When 70 works out of the total 78 are completed, you can officially say that Jammu has become a Smart City.” “In June, we can say that Jammu has become a Smart City as per the urban international standards,” he said.
Among the eight big works which might be completed in October include 23 heavily congested traffic junctions in Jammu like Jewel Chowk, Apsara Road, Canal Road, Bikram Chowk and others which are being widened under the ‘High Speed Development Project’.
The e-buses project is also likely to be completed by October this year as the buses will start arriving in J&K in June.
Apart from this, the Tawi River Front will also take some time to get completed beyond June.
Some of the important works completed under the Smart City Project so far include the Intelligent Traffic System, Integrated Command Control Centre (ICCC), redevelopment of Narwal Mandi, widening of the road from KC Chowk to Dogra Chowk, modernization of Fire & Emergency Stations, etc.
The work for digital plates for each house, shops and malls in Jammu is going on and will be completed by or before October, officials said.
The Smart City Project was announced in 2017 but the ground work was started in 2020-21 due to Covid.
