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| Board meetings are confined to a "tamasha" alleges opposition | | | Early times Report
Jammu, September 8
The National Conference led coalition Government has reversed the 34-year old practice of taking the cabinet to the doorsteps of people. The old practice has been discarded at least for the time being, when the Government opted for holding district development Board meetings in the state's two capitals, Jammu and Srinagar. Not only this meetings of two district Boards are being held per day.
The Panthers Party vice chairman, Harsh Dev Singh, today said that the ruling coalition had made a "tamasha" out of the developmental tradition set up by Sheikh Abdullah in 1975. He said Sheikh Abdullah had devised the plan of holding the district development Board meetings at the district headquarters so that there was an open interaction between the people of the district and the cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats to take up the issues o development of the concerned district.
Harsh Dev said that the purpose of holding the District Development Board meetings was to finalise the district plans with the consent of the peoples’ representatives and other members. ‘It had now become a practice to include suggestions and demands made by the prominent citizens of the district, he irefully said.
Besides him Ashok Khajuria MLA BJP said that during the last 20 years the annual district plans were not being framed and finalised during the district development board meetings. They said even major suggestions from the legislators belonging to the district were not being looked into while finalising the district plans.
A senior PDP leader,Nizam-ud-Din Bhat,said that if it was not possible for the Chief Minister to attend Board meetings at the district headquarters he should have asked his ministerial colleagues to visit the rural areas where they could interact with people and know the problems they faced. Once it was done the cabinet could formulate the district plans which would cover difficulties of people.
However, the Revenue Minister and the minister for revenue Raman Bhalla, defended the procedure of holding district development board meetings in Jammu and in Srinagar only.
He said that the decision had been taken after the Government realized that any further delay in holding the Board meetings could hamper the execution of the annual plan funds.
Bhalla however added that that as a result of the Assembly and the Lok Sabha elections during the budget session of the state legislature had to be held in August instead of January-February adding that this had called for immediate completion of the district development Board meetings for finalizing the district plans.
He said that the Government had to spent several hundred crores of rupees on various development projects besides Rs.1200 crores under the Prime Minister's reconstruction programme and it is in this context the Board meetings had to be held in the two capitals enabling the Chief Minister,Omar Abdullah, to preside over the meetings of all the district development Boards. Bhalla said "We do not want to repeat the mistake committed by the previous Government which failed to utilise major portion of the Rs.32000 crore Prime Minister's reconstruction Plan.
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