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| JK likely to reel under financial crisis till new Govt takes charge | | | Bashir Assad
Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 19: Despite its repeated assurances to release funds to the state to get it out from the worst ever financial crunch, centre prefers to keep Jammu Kashmir cash starved for the time being.
The crunch is so grave that the state could not even manage the salaries and pensions of its serving and retired employees from non-plan component. Highly placed sources in the civil secretariat told early Times on Thursday that it was unlikely of the central government to release the funds to the state even though it has time and again assured the administration currently headed by the Governor N N Vohra.
Sources said that the reports about centre releasing the funds to Jammu and Kashmir to meet the challenges were far from truth.
"We left no stone unturned to convince them (the central government) to release the funds but nobody listened to us" said a senior state government functionary.
They are delaying the fund release on one pretext or the other, the officer said.
He said that the situation in the state may go from bad to worse by the next week. There have to have a government in place as early as by the next week to overcome the economic crisis, said the officer. He said that crisis was likely to be overcome only once the new Government is in place and the issue is taken up at highest level with the Government of India.
"We don't have even salaries to our employees, developmental works have come to a grinding halt" said another senior official in the civil secretariat. He said that we don't have money even for snow clearance from the roads not to speak of carrying out developmental works, the officer said. They said that state was passing through one of its worst economic crisis, which aggravated due to over two and half months long caretaker Government in the Assembly elections when the Chief Minister, the Finance Minister and the Planning Minister were unable to take up the matter with the Union Finance Minister as their role during Model Code of Conduct was reduced to that of interim Government, which can't take any major decision. They said that the central government is deliberately delaying the release of funds and only new government can tide over the crisis if and when it is in place. They said that there was no reason not to admit that functioning of the Government has been very badly hit due to the financial crisis. They said that the union government had approved Rs 7300 crores worth annual plan, Rs 4000 crores under Centrally Sponsored Schemes and Rs 600 crores for Prime Minister's Re-construction Plan (PMRP) for Jammu and Kashmir during current financial year of 2014-15. However, they added, the funds have been virtually stopped as the Government of India had raised certain clarifications, which it wanted to be replied with immediately before release of further funds. "The issues were such that only a political dispensation can settle them. It was not for the bureaucrats to reply to these issues,'' they said, adding once the new Government is in place only then these issues can be sorted out and till then the financial crisis was likely to prevail. |
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