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| End discrimination to ensure unity and integrity of J&K | | |
RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Mar 29: The March 25 Assembly proceedings establish that the State of Jammu and Kashmir may not remain intact geographically and politically. Apart from contradictory stands of the Jammu-based and Kashmir-based legislators on issues like women's bill and inter-district recruitment, the issue of discrimination raised in the Assembly by the Jammu-based opposition parties, including the Panthers Party, the BJP and the JSM, and the counter arguments advanced by certain Kashmir-based legislators do indicate that the legislators are divided on regional lines and that they treading diametrically opposed paths.
Even Speaker of the Assembly had to make a passionate appeal to everyone that they should abandon issues of regional nature and focus on the state-centric issues. His refrain was that Jammu and Kashmir was one state and it would be in the interest of everyone if state-centric issues were raised in the Assembly.
What had generated heat in the Assembly was the charge leveled by Panthers Party MLA and former Cabinet Minister Harsh Dev Singh that the state government was discriminating against the people of Jammu province. All the BJP and the JSM MLAs, especially Ashwini Sharma of Bishnah constituency and Jugal Kishore Sharma of the Nagrota constituency, supported him to the hilt.
To prove his charge that the state government had been treating the people of Jammu province unfairly, Harsh Dev Singh referred to the allotment of funds for the protection, preservation, conservation and beautification of the Dal Lake and Wullar Lake, located in Kashmir, and Surinsar and Mansar Lakes, located in Jammu province and asked the government to explain as to under which criteria funds had been allotted.
He drew the attention of the Assembly to the fact that while the authorities had sanctioned Rs 1100 crore for the Dal Lake and Rs 356 crore for the Wullar Lake, the ancient lakes of Surinsar and Manasar, which are fast-decaying and "dying an unnatural death" due to official apathy, had been left high and dry. He said that the authorities had earmarked only a small amount of Rs 1.35 crore for the Mansar Lake.
Besides, he said: "Surinsar and Dalsar lakes" (in Jammu province) have become ponds". Not only this, Harsh Dev Singh, supported by the Jammu-based opposition parties, accused the state government of according step-motherly treatment to the Jammu province in matters relating to the conservation of Jhelum river in Kashmir and Tawi river in Jammu. In this regard, he said that while the authorities had sanctioned a whopping sum of Rs 2200 crore for the conservation and beautification of the Jhelum river, only Rs 25 crore had been sanctioned for Tawi river. He, in addition, criticized the government for declaring 2010 as "Visit Kashmir Year" and not "Visit Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh Year".
The state government needs to address the complaints of regional discrimination. Not to do so would be only to help those who are working for the state's division or the state's reorganization. The Panthers Party is one such party that has demanded the state's reorganization.
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