Why GoI’s packages fail in Kashmir?
Faisul Yaseen
From free rice in 1953 to Manmohan Singh’s Rs 24,000 crore package in 2004, from Rajiv Gandhi’s proposed Rs 10,000 crore package in 1987 to H D Deve Gowda’s Rs 301 crore package in 1996, Government of India (GoI) has been pumping money into Jammu Kashmir but failed to get the results it desired.
Why did all these financial packages fail?
Noted Kashmiri economist, Prof. Nisar Ali said these packages had been unsuccessful as the amount announced by the GoI for Jammu Kashmir had been pumped into its own projects like constructing railway links and laying out roads and developing other infrastructure.
Referring to the previous economic package of GoI, he said of the total Rs 24,000 crore announced by Manmohan Singh in 2004, Rs 18,000 crore had been granted to National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) while Rs 4500 crore was the plan grants meant for the State.
“When money used by the GoI for its own projects is sold as a financial package for Kashmir, how could those so-called packages have improved Kashmir’s economy,” Ali said.
Former prime minister, Indira Gandhi had in 1980 laid the foundation stone for a railway for linking Kashmir to the rest of the world. Six years later, her son, Rajiv Gandhi after taking over as the Prime Minister of India, announced Rs 10,000 crore package for building a six-lane highway and setting up power projects.
However, Rajiv’s package was shelved by his successor V P Singh-led government.
Later, the governments led by V P Singh, Narasimha Rao, H D Deve Gowda and Inder Kumar Gujral promised autonomy, rail links, agricultural universities and highways while Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government promised to set up seven power projects in the State.
Most of these promises remained unfulfilled though.
Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI) President, Mushtaq Wani said when the packages do not bring any change in the economic conditions of the State, it proves these were not meant for the State but for improving GoI’s own infrastructure in Jammu Kashmir.
“All the packages of GoI to the State so far have been a crude joke,” he said.
Two high-powered committees had been framed in the past to suggest measures for making the State economically efficient.
This included Prime Minister’s Task Force on Development of Jammu Kashmir headed by former RBI Governor, C Rangarajan on March 29, 2005 and the report of PM’s Interlocutors on Kashmir reconstruction plan for Jammu Kashmir.
However, GoI never implemented the recommendations of any of these committees.
All Parties Hurriyat Conference (M) Chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said Kashmir is a political issue that needs a political solution as per the aspirations of Kashmiris and GoI cannot woo people to give up their fight for self-determination only by extending concessions and announcing economic packages.
H D Deve Gowda’s package in 1996 that ended up spending Rs 301 crore and waved small bad debts below Rs 50,000 was welcomed by the people who got a reprieve but could not generate any goodwill among the masses.
“There are some things in life, money can’t buy,” said Sajad Ahmad, a shopkeeper, whose loan was waived off with the Gowda’s package. “For other things in Kashmir, there are financial package.”
Ahmad was referring to the political aspirations of Kashmiris and said economic is important but honour and dignity is sacred.
Other GoI packages included industry specific incentives in 2002 that led to rapid industrialization of the Hindu belt of the State including Jammu, Kathua and parts of Udhampur with investment touching Rs 3000 crore.
However, out of this amount not a rupee was given to Kashmir.
Vajpayee had also announced Rs 8687 crore 26-projects package in May 2002 but most of this investment had been granted to defence roads and the railway lines.
Opposition National Conference General Secretary, Ali Muhammad Sagar said economic packages have been given to Kashmir in the past too and most of those packages were used for Government of India’s own projects like NHPC and Railways.
Kashmir Centre for Social and Development Studies (KCSDS) member and social activist, Shakeel Qalander, shares Sagar’s views.
He said previously too, of the Rs 1000 crore received by Jammu Kashmir from the former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi’s Rs 10,000 crore package, Rs 992 crore were meant for NHPC and a further Rs 6 crore were spent by the then chief minister, Farooq Abdullah on converting the City Forest into a golf course, leaving just Rs 2 crore for different developmental projects of the State.
“The fate of all such packages is already known to the people of Kashmir,” Qalander said.
