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| Taking cabinet to doorsteps of people a mere prank | | |
When recently Chief Minister,Omar Abdullah,held a public Durbar at Bandipore and later at Ganderbal newsmen were fed with a press release saying that after a gap of three decades Omar has succeeded in taking the cabinet to the door steps of people.Whether at Bandipore or at Ganderbal Omar Abdullah had taken with him cabinet ministers senior bureaucrats including the heads of various departments.The purpose of this Durbar was to know the problems of the people and redress those that deserved on the spot review.The Information Department released pictures of Omar holding one-to-one meeting with people He listened to the problems of some of the people and hardly a handful of them could see their problems resolved.The twin Durbar neither resolved the problem of unemployment in the two districts nor did they solve other basic problems.In fact the author of taking the cabinet to the doorsteps of people was none other than Omar's grand father,the legendary Sheikh Abdullah.He had conceived the idea of holding the district development Board meetings where the entire cabinet would be present.The basic idea of the Sheikh was to enable people to have interaction with the ministers for the purpose of making them aware of their problems.Also,Sheikh Abdullah wanted to frame the district plans after seeking opinions and suggestions from the people of each district.Over the years the system has been eroded and the exercise of convening district development Board meetings has become a mere ritual.And Omar Abdullah has been inst rumental in degrading this exercise to a farce.Imagine seven months of the current year are about to elapse and so far not a single district development board meeting has been convened either for formulating the district plans or for interaction between the people and the ministers.If one asks the Government about it one is t old that since the budget proposals had neither been tabled nor adopted in the state legislature there was no purpose of holding the district development Board meetings.Atleast the cabinet could have visited each district for having an on-the-spot assessment of the problems people face.If Omar Abdullah has tried to revive the 30 year old practice of taking the cabinet to the door steps of people does he think that his attempt has succeeded by taking cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats to Bandipore and Ganderbal ?Perhaps Omar believes that the state of Jammu and Kashmir has only two districts,Bandipore and Ganderbal.Interestingly,both these districts have been formed after Ghulam Nabi Azad carved out eight new districts in the state about two years ago.Omar Abdullah should realise that there are several districts,including two in Ladakh,and three in the Jammu region,Poonch,Rajouri and Doda,that are considered to be the most backward belts in the state.Omar would have really gone a step ahead of his grand father had he,by now,taken the cabinet to the doorsteps of people in the r emaining 20 districts.(
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