Jammu Redefining Magazine Vol.2 No.-4 | Page 7

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-