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| Lavish marriages mock at Guest Control order | | Poor families face heat | | Minam Saqib
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Aug 24: As the marriage season is in full bloom, the authorities have failed to enforce the guest control order. The results are obvious. A crude show of ostentation leaves the poor shocked.
The Jammu and Kashmir government had last year in February announced restrictions on the number of guests to be invited and also specified the number of dishes that can be served at both public and private gatherings, mostly weddings, to curb the wastage of food in these events.
The department of Food Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs department (FCS & CA),had come up with this order after receiving multiple complaints regarding the reckless use of commodities and expenditures required for such functions.
The then minister for FCS & CA, Chowdhary Zulfikar Ali, had said that weddings in recent years have become a 'nuisance'.
"Now you can only invite 500 guests for a daughter's wedding and 400 for a son's wedding. For the ring ceremonies people can invite 100 guests," Chowdhary had said.
The order was supposed to come into effect from April last year.
However, after more than a year, the order is confined to papers only. People say it is a mere "eye-wash".
Officials of the FCS & CA acknowledged the failure of government in implementing the order.
"The government order has turned out to be a hoax. It is mainly because the order was issued without any preparations on ground," an official of FCS&CA said, wishing anonymity.
He said that the implementation of the order was "practically impossible" in the Valley.
"The previous ministry had issued the order in haste. It has been more than 16 months now and I don't see any implementation on ground. The order will meet the same fate in the coming years as well," the official said.
Abdul Gani, a resident of Bemina, whose daughter is to get married, later this month said that poor people were not concern for the government. "How can I cook a lot a variety on my daughter's marriage. I am a labourer but government is not keeping check on extravaganza weddings and then becomes burden for poor people like us," he said.
The government had issued such bans in the past too. The order passed in October 2004 restricted the scale of hospitality, the preparation of dishes and the number of guests at weddings and related ceremonies. |
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