JJ dedicates Churunda model village near LoC to locals

Churunda, Line of Control (LoC), Oct 6 (UNI) Army Chief General J J Singh today inaugurated the model village of Churunda in Uri Tehsil of north Kashmir's Baramulla district.

Churunda village, barely a few hundred meters from the LoC, had suffered maximum damage in the devastating earthquake of October 8 last year.

About 31 people were killed, 12 seriously wounded and 62 livestock perished in the killer quake. Nearly 100 per cent houses and existing infrastructure were destroyed in the temblor.

Gen Singh visited the quake-ravaged area of Uri on November 21 in 2005 and pledged to built Churunda a model village of rehabilitated prosperity, organised development and for others to emulate.

Today, he inaugurated and dedicated the model village Churunda to the locals.

The Army has met the aspirations of locals by constructing 230 new houses, creating a road link to this remote village and construction of bus stand, grain store, veterinary centre, tiled pathways inside the village, school building, modern four-bed dispensary, vocational training centre for empowerment of women and for training the youth, development of modern recreational asset like amphi-theatre, provision of water supply scheme to door steps, provision of electricity to village over rugged terrain and street lighting in the village in a record time.

Apart from Churunda, similar projects are nearing completion in adjoining villages of Batgran and Thajal.

Dedication of this model infrastructure culminated the massive rehabilitation and reconstruction drive undertaken by the Army under 'Operation Sadbhavna'.

Later addressing the locals, the Army Chief stressed on uplift of rural areas of the state by providing quality education, health-care, clean drinking water, empowerment of women, clean environment and basic infrastructure for positive engagement of youth to make a better society.

He emphasised on the importance of engaging children of the region in quality education.

Gen Singh reiterated that the Indian Army has and would remain in the forefront of all pursuits of nation building, especially, in creation of a generation with vision for growth and prosperity.

During his two-hour stay at Churunda, the Army Chief met the locals and officials of the civil administration.

Gen Singh later told reporters that all possible measures have been taken to defeat the designs of infiltration and exfiltration by militants from across the LoC.

He said the Army was fully geared up to rehabilitate villages devastated in the powerful earthquake.

UNI AG YA KN2040