PM’s Jammu visit | Security on maximum alert

Srinagar, Feb 16: Security forces have been put on maximum alert to ensure the smooth conduct of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Jammu visit on February 20.

During his visit, the PM is set to inaugurate and lay the foundation of Rs 3161 crore projects.

Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha also took stock of the preparations for the PM’s visit.

During his visit, PM Modi is set to formally launch the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) election campaign for the Lok Sabha polls from J&K.

A public rally is scheduled at the M A Stadium in Jammu city, where the BJP anticipates a gathering of over 1 lakh people.

Particularly high excitement surrounds the attendance of the Pahari community, which recently attained Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.

Within his expected two-hour programme at the M A Stadium, the PM would lay the foundation stone and inaugurate projects totalling Rs 3161 crore.

Officials have disclosed that PM Modi would distribute appointment letters to youth and engage with the public through a video conferencing programme from the Stadium.

The PM would symbolically inaugurate the Jammu-Srinagar train, covering a 48.5 km journey ahead of Banihal town.

Railway officials said that the virtual inauguration by the PM would mark the train’s route from Kashmir’s Baramulla town to Sangaldan, surpassing its current deboarding station at Banihal in Jammu.

Among the projects to be virtually inaugurated are the AIIMS in Vijaypur town, the highest railway bridge in Reasi district, the Devika Rejuvenation project, the Shahpur Kandi project, IIM Jammu, and various major roads and projects in both Kashmir and Jammu divisions.

On February 20, PM Modi would also lay the foundation for 124 new projects in J&K.

These encompass nine Industrial Estates, construction and upgrading of 62 road projects and 42 bridges, and 2816 flats for Kashmiri migrants in various districts of Kashmir.

Additionally, the inauguration of 85 projects by the PM includes transit accommodation for Kashmiri migrants, degree college buildings infrastructure, a drug testing laboratory, grid stations, receiving stations, transmission line projects, road projects, bridges, modernisation of Narwal Fruit Mandi, Common Effluent Treatment Plants, and Intelligent Traffic Management System in Srinagar City.

The most recent public rally addressed by the PM in J&K was on April 24, 2022, at Palli Panchayat in Samba district.

With two seats in the outgoing Lok Sabha (Jammu-Poonch and Udhampur-Kathua), the BJP aims to secure the south Kashmir Lok Sabha seat following the new delimitation of constituencies in J&K.