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| Hilly district for Basohli | | | Shiv Kumar Padha
The old English saying 'Panny is
wise and pound is foolish' may or may not appear meaningful but it seems carrying deep meaning the way the previous jammu and Kashmir governments have been showing their biased and partial approach while taking the most important and genuine decisions flouting all thenorms and criteria. Even a man in the street, with a bit of sense, pooh pooh the illogical, irrational, partisan, undemocratic and ridiculous decisions of the state government in the implementation of the wazir commission where a number of small tehsils, combined with one or two tehsils or even two Niabats only, have been granted district hood in the past while the claims and the qualifications of the vast and oldest tehsil like Basohli, mother of six tehsils and three subdivision, have been pushed to the wall every time for the reasons well known to every citizen of the tehsil. The natives of tehsil have been becoming prey of the political vendetta by their own nonlocal representatives who used Basohli as their colony and reached the parlor of power. Jammu and Kashmir state, In spite of its geographical variations, unique topography and limited economic sources, has always surpassed and excelled other states of the country in the matters of governance, progress, development and elevation of economic status of its masses by the judicious planning and farsightedness. But Basohli, as ill luck would have it, has always been pushed to the wall whenever there came an occasion of granting of boons by the state government. It is established fact that Basohli has always suffered and paid the price for the development of the state in the past. Whether it is a case of construction of Ranjeet Sagar Dam or its division into six tehsils, three sub divisions and dozens of niabats Basohli has always been made scapegoat because this tehsil was made to bear the brunt of mass scale migration of its people from Basohli as aftermath of ponding of the Ranjeet Sagar Dam. The whole business of Basohli was ruined, the markets which always remained busy gave deserted look and the backwaters of the RSD separated the kith and kins apart like the wall of Berlin.
During the last up gradation of some tehsils of the state to district hood the case of Basohli tehsil was neither pleaded nor represented properly at the political as well as at the administrative level with the result that this tehsil was deprived of this opportunity where on the contrary new districts were framed in Jammu as well as in Kashmir divisions only by joining one tehsil with two or, in some special cases, with one niabat.
There is, for instance, a newly created district in Jammu division where the district head quartes of the adjoining districts are at a hand shaking distance. The way district hood to some of the tehsils was accorded indicates that the magic band of some powerful and influential politicians played greater role than the claims and qualifications of the most deserving tehsils.
Historically speaking, Basohli has been one of the vast and most prosperous among the 22 duggar states. There was a time when Basohli was considered as a hub of trade between the adjoining states of Punjab and Himachal Pardesh and has contributed a lot towards the cultural horizon of the country. According to an agreement reached at between the Sikh rulers of Lahore and the East India Company, in March 1846 Maharaja Gulab Singh was recognized as independent and sovereign ruler of Jammu and Kashmir. According to the conditions laid down in the agreement, Basohli lost its entity as a separate duggar state and was merged with jammu and Kashmir which was spread over 84 thousand square miles. Before the merger of Basohli state with jammu and Kashmir there were only 74 village but after the merger of Bhaddu, Sumrata and Ram Kot with Basohli it was made a full-fledged tehsil of Kathua district in 1931 with the number of the villages increased to 144. With the passage of time the process of division and sub division of this vast tehsil has never stopped till its hex furcation in tehsils likeBillawer, Bani, Malhar, Mahanpur and Ram Kot in the years 1996, 2004 and in 2014 respectively. Creation of Sub Division Bsohlidates back to 1971and had the credit of being the first Sub Division in the whole ditrictKathua.
With the creation of new tehsils, out of the oldest tehsil Basohli,Kathua has become the district head quarter of ten tehsils which is too big and cumbersome to manage and develop. The district head quarter kathua is only at a driving distance of maximum two hours from its tehsils falling in the plane and well-connected terrain whereas a man from far off villages of Bani and Malhar needs at least four days to attend the offices at the present district head quarterkathua, with two intervening nights either at Basohli or at Kathua which tells badly upon the pocket of the poor people due to the sky high rates of transportation, accommodation and meals. Geographically the area of the present tehsils Bani, Basohli, Mahanpur, Malhar, RamKot andBillawer constitute more than two third of the whole district Kathua where Basohli, Mahanpur and Bani tehsils together constitute more than half of it. According to the topography, the two tehsils ( Basohli and Bani ) have scattered population which lives in the isolated habitats located in the remote and inaccessible pockets of these tehsils. It is worth mentioning here that Basohli is situated at a place where both Bani and Billawer have easy access. Whole Bani tehsil is connected with Basohli and the rest of the country by the Basohli, Bani, Bhaderwah road which is considered as the life line of the whole Bani tehsil moreover the distance between the farthest corner of the Bani and Basohli is less than half of the distance they have been travelling up to kathua so far. Similarly Basohli town is also near and easily accessible for the people of Billawer tehsil in comparison to the district head quarter Kathua. With the completion and inauguration of the cable stayed bridge, AtalSetu over river Ravi on 24 th Dec. 2015, not only Billawer tehsil but the whole area beyond Udhampur falling on either sides of the Jammu Srinagar highway will prefer travelling to other parts of the country via Basohli. Being the confluence of the three states, Basohli is again going to emerge as hub of trade, tourism and amalgamated cultural activities. There are already many district level departments like three divisions of PDD, one division of PWD, District Institute Of Education and trainings, Jwahar Navodya Vidyalay and now the recently sanctioned B.Sc. Nursingcollege and sufficient infrastructure to accommodate district level offices to start with. As compared to other parts of the state Basohli has got the best connectivity, accessibility, viability and possibility of development in the coming days. The days are not far off when, like Chandigarah, Basohli city will be spread over the adjoining three states.
A new and separate district for Basohli, the mother of six tehsils and three sub divisions, is the need of the time so that the scope for the tehsils, which remained deprived of their due share in the development due to the political discrimination, is ensured to the desired and expected level.District hood for Basohli is the genuine, justified and necessity in the present context because further division of Basohli tehsil will deprive the people of the remaining streets and mohalas. Creation of Basohli district for the hilly tehsils of districtKathua namely Bani, Bilawer, Basohli, Mahanpur, Malhar and Ramkot will go a long way in ensuring the speedy and needed development of the remote, backward and inaccessible areas of these hilly tehsils. An historical map of old tehsil Basohli is attached herewith as a proof of vastness of the undivided Tehsil Basohli in the past. |
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