GoI likely to announce Rs 10000 Cr relief package for J&K
Government of India (GoI) is expected to announce financial package of around 10,000 crores for Jammu and Kashmir in next few days to help Mufti-government to bring out the border State from economic morass.
Senior officials of the Union Finance Ministry are busy giving final touches to the package, which includes relief for thousands of flood affected families and funds for various development schemes in the State.Due to resource crunch, the developmental schemes are in limbo.
Since Mufti government came to power in March, it faces acute financial crisis and has urged the Modi-government to help it to wriggle out from the financial crisis.
Sources said the package will be announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley after getting approval from Prime Minister and other ministerial colleagues.
The J&K’s economy is at virtual brake down. Governor N N Vohra had apprised GoI about it in January when he had sought report from senior functionaries about the health of the State’s economy.
Even Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu has admitted that broad thrust of the government is to revive economy.
There are 62,000 casual employees who are without salary for two years.
Last year’s flood has further compounded State’s problems. The flood caused massive devastation of infrastructure and badly affected tourism, horticulture and handicraft industries.
The Omer Abdullah government had sought Rs 44,000 crores economic package from GoI for relief and rehabilitation programme.
However, GoI asked former Home Secretary Anil Goswami to study the state government proposal and make recommendations. But his unceremonious exit caused further delay and no money was released by the centre except Rs 1000 crore from the Prime Minister relief fund.
“Since Mufti government came to power, it made several pleas to GoI to release funds for various welfare programmes. But nothing was done. Now it appears that GoI is keen to help the state government so that it can focus on development and put economy back on rails,” officials said.
Recently Home Secretary L C Goyal also chaired a meeting of officials to discuss state of affairs.
The Parliamentary Committee on Science and Technology recently visited Kashmir and expressed dismay over inadequate compensation to the flood victims. The panel’s chairman Ashwini Kumar said compensation given so far does not constitute reasonable compensation and it needs to be enhanced.
He said GoI must be liberal with the state to help it overcome the financial crisis.
