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| Even in election year, Omar Govt has nothing for media | | | ET Report
JAMMU, Feb 13: It was only after the ETV Urdu correspondent asked a question at today's press conference that the Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather said that "Government is actively considering establishing press housing colonies in the State". Like in four of the last five budgets, Rather made no mention of the conditions in which the fourth estate is operating both in Kashmir and Jammu.
Believe it or not, the proposal of establishing two residential colonies for mediapersons, one each in Srinagar and Jammu, has been under the "active consideration" of successive governments in the last 10 years. Even then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who singularly holds the credit of having allotted plots to over a dozen journalists in the Congress regime before Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah's taking over in 1974-75, could not cut much of the ice insofar as setting up of the two colonies was concerned.
Mufti's successor Ghulam Nabi Azad went to the extent of claiming that the two colonies would be inaugurated within his rule. Farooq Reenzu, Mufti's and Azad's pet Director of Information, who had been by then appointed as Deputy Commissioner of Budgam, was given the special responsibility of identifying a piece of land for the proposed Srinagar colony at Humhama. Even a group of the local journalists were taken on a tour to the site and unofficially advised to constitute a cooperative housing society for the purpose of development of the land and its allotment, initially to the accredited journalists and editors of well-established newspapers and agencies.
The colonies did never come up.
Omar Abdullah's and Rather's government was kind enough to remain mum on this subject for four years. In its fourth year, the NC-led coalition government was taken for a ride by a physically and psychologically paralysed Director of Estates, who is now a Deputy Commissioner. The KAS-turned-IAS officer in one go raised the rent of the non-legislator, non-official tenants [read journalists etc] from Rs 800 to Rs 4,000 a unit. Media's verbal and published pleas, which were also highlighted in MLAs like Yousuf Tarigami, Nizamuddin and Engineer Rashid in Assembly, fell on deaf ears of the State government.
Finally, it was in the last year's budget that the Finance Minister announced establishment of the two residential colonies for mediapersons, one each in Srinagar and Jammu. As nobody would have expected the bureaucrats like Bharat Vyas and so-called Economic Advisor Jalil Khan to make any progress, Rather's proposal gathered dust on his cupboards. Mr Rather, who now enjoys the unmatched credit of having presented 14 regular budgets and two vote-on-account financial statements in the State, could have gracefully avoided the ETV man's question with "no comment". However, he said that the proposal was "under active consideration", knowing that his government is close to its fag end and that his bureaucracy would not let him think it.
Previously, when Muzaffar Baig was the Finance Minister, Mohammad Shafi Pandit Principal Secretary Finance and Haseeb Drabu Economic Advisor, the State government had announced extension of its employees Janata Insurance scheme, coupled with another group insurance scheme, to the amusement of the mediapersons. It was never operated.
The best a government could perhaps do for the welfare and interest of the conflict-ravaged state's journalists was to make it clear on the floor of the Assembly in its current session that no government has ever implemented or introduced even a scheme of Re 1 for the journalists discharging their duties in the country's worst possible conditions. Let it be clear to all and sundry that when a mediaperson needs money for treatment when he gets injured in a bomb blast or firing, he has to dispose off his parent's land or ornaments. When a journalist dies his family gets nothing, repeat absolutely nothing, other than the extra gratia of Rs 1.25 lakh---exactly the amount which a beggar from outside the State gets if he dies in a militancy-related incident.
Still, our Ministers and legislators are never tired of making eloquent statements on the fourth estate and its importance in a democratic set up. They in fact treat the men of this "fourth estate" as the third-rated fifth columns and second class citizens. Could they have some shame? |
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