Jammu Redefining
| February 23-March 8, 2014
R O U N D U P
3 J&K tourist circuits
under Centre's active
consideration
Three mega religious tourist circuits in Jammu and Kashmir "are
under active consideration of the
Centre", the state Assembly was
informed, triggering a walkout by
opposition PDP MLAs who demanded a tourist circuit in Pulwama.
Tourism Minister G A Mir said
approval for the Rs 150 crore tourist
circuits -- Sufi Circuit in Kashmir,
Pilgrimage Circuit in Jammu and
Buddhist Circuit in Ladakh -- were
under active consideration of the
Centre, and the state government
had addressed the issues raised in
this regard.
Mir was replying to supplementary
questions raised by some members
to the main query of Congress MLA
Ashok Kumar in the Legislative
Assembly.
The minister said construction of
ropeway at Patnitop had already
been cleared under public-private
partnership (PPP) mode. The government has been vigorously following environment clearance for the
project from Supreme Court which
is expected within a month, he
added.
Mir said the government was
encouraging youths to take part in
water sports at Baglihar and Ranjit
Sagar Dams, and for the purpose
incentive was being provided to purchase equipment.
He said as many as 152 tourism
projects at a cost of Rs 628.86
crore had been sanctioned by the
Centre for Jammu and Kashmir, and
75 of them had been completed
while works for remaining 77 projects were at various stages of completion.
14,345 hectares of forest land
encroached upon in J&K; 9463
hectares in Jammu region
The Government said that 14,345
hectares of forest land had so far
been encroached upon in the State.
In a written reply to the question
of Congress member Mohammad
Sharief Niaz in Assembly, Forests
Minister Mian Altaf Ahmed said that
14,345 hectares of forest land had
been encroached upon - 9,463.39
hectares in Jammu and 4877.62
hectares in Kashmir.
Of these, 1,096.72 hectares of
land has been cleared in eviction
drives, he said. Efforts to retrieve
the rest are on and no fresh
encroachment is being allowed, he
said.
The total forest area of the State
is 20,230 square kilometers.
(AGENCIES)
Parliament Committee asks
J&K Govt to examine demand
for minority status to Kashmiri
Pandits
A Parliamentary Committee has
asked Jammu and Kashmir
Government to examine a demand
for granting minority status to
Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) in view of
their "pitiable condition" after they
were forced to leave the Valley due
to militancy.
A similar view was also expressed
by Chairman of National
Commission for Minorities (NCM)
Wajahat Habibullah, who said the
State Government had been
advised to declare Kashmiri Pandits
as minorities.
As per official data, as many as
59,442 Kashmiri Pandit families
have been registered as migrants
with 38,119 registered in Jammu,
19,338 in Delhi and 1,985 in rest of
the country.
The families had to leave Kashmir
Valley in 1990?s after militancy
spread in various parts of the region
with some of the community members also being targeted.
Tabling an Action Taken Report
on 'Rehabilitation of Jammu and
Kashmir Migrants' in Rajya Sabha,
the 31-member Committee comprising 10 MPs from Rajya Sabha and
21 from Lok Sabha has been critical
of of the Ministry of Home Affairs on
various issues including providing
relief, employment, housing and
health care facilities.
The Parliamentary panel had
formed a 14-member sub-committee which went into the action taken
by the Home Ministry to its recommendations made in the 137th
report.
The Committee said that several
representations were made by various migrant organisations asking
that Kashmiri Pandits be declared
as minorities.
The panel said it was informed by
the Union Home Ministry that the
State Government's stand was that
the migrants belong to Hindu religion and as such do not qualify for
grant of minority status.
However, the State Government
feels that the issue of granting
minority status to the Kashmiri
Pandit community needs to be
examined "from all angles".
"The Committee feels that the
State Government has a special
status in the Indian Constitution.
The Government of Jammu and
Kashmir should look into the
demand of the Kashmiri Pandits for
conferring on them minority status
keeping in mind their pitiable condition," the report said.
The NCM Act of 1972 does not
extend to the State of Jammu and
Kashmir as it is yet to be ratified by
the State Assembly. The State
enjoys a special status and Central
Acts do not come into force automatically till ratified by state legislature. (AGENCIES)
7
PDP MLA Syed Bashir Slaps
Marshal, apologizes next day
PDP legislator Syed Bashir who
slapped a Jammu and Kashmir
assembly marshal apologized in the
house next day.
"If someone from the staff has
hurt while taking me out of the
House, I apologise for that," Mr
Bashir told the House.
Syed Bashir, who represents the
south Kashmir Rajpoora constituency, sought apology on the floor of
the House for yesterday's incident
when he slapped member of watch
and ward staff while he was being
marshaled out of the house on the
directions of the speaker Mubarak
Gul.
The situation turned ugly in the
house when PDP MLA made a desperate effort to raise the issue of
shortage of ration supply for
migrants living in the Jagti Migrant
colony.
When he was directed by the
speaker not to disturb the proceedings as Agriculture Minister GH Mir
was tabling the grants of the department the PDP MLA ignored the diktats and started raising the issue
while approaching the well of the
house.
Acting swiftly the Speaker directed the marshals to evict him out of
the house. While marshals pushed
him at least five PDP MLA's including Naizam Din Bhat, Dr Mohd
Shafi, and three others came to his
rescue but they too were marshaled
out on the directions of the speaker.
BJP releases list of candidates
for 5 J&K seats
The Bharatiya Janata Party has
released its first list of candidates
for the Lok Sabha elections.
Candidates to 54 seats, including 5
from Jammu and Kashmir, have
been announced.
Dr. Jitendra Singh, will contest
from Udhampur Lok Sabha constituency, while the State Party
President Jugal Kishore Sharma will
contest for Jammu LS.
For Baramulla the party has given
mandate to Gulam Mohammad
Meer, Mushtaq Ahmad Malik,
Nurabadi from South Kashmir and
Thunpsthan Chhewang, National
Executive Member, from Ladakh.
However, the party remained indecisive over its candidate for Srinagar
constituency.
50 per cent consumer
installations still remain
unmetered in J&K: PDD
Despite widening gap between
power purchase bill and total power
receipts the Power Development
Department has managed to install
meters only across 50 per cent consumer installations leaving a huge
gap of 50 percent unmetered installations ending December 2013.
According to official sources out
of 15.88 lac consumer installations
the PDD has completed process of
metering across 8 lac installations
across the state till December end
2013.
The PDD spent approximately
3860 crore on power chase but
managed to recover 1579 crores
this year. To pat its own back the
PDD has been claiming that the
department has managed to bring
down T&D losses from the 63 per
cent in 2009-10 to 56.98 percent in
2012-13 and have taken many
other steps to reduce T&D losses.
According to PDD during 201213 506.38 MW load has been
added and during 2013-14 187.55
MW load has been added by way of
regularization of the illegal connections. To do the department carried
out 73389 inspections during 201213 and 47445 during 2013-14.
The department has also managed to check the transformer damage rate. From 41 percent in 201112 the transformer damage rate has
declined to approximately 25 per-