Over Rs 1,600 crore spent on relief, rehab of Kashmiri migrants this year

The expenditure incurred by the Jammu and Kashmir government on relief and rehabilitation of the migrants is being reimbursed by the Home Ministry under SRE (Relief and Rehabilitation), Minister of State for Home Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary said while giving details of packages of the Government from time to time for Kashmiri migrants, who left the Valley with the onset of militancy in early 1990’s.

“The government has incurred a total expenditure of Rs 1,663.92 crore under SRE (R&R) till September 2015 for relief and rehabilitation of the Kashmiri migrants since 1989-90,” he said.

Out of this amount, Rs 155.03 crore has been incurred in 2014-15 and Rs 181.75 crore during 2015-16 till September this year, the Minister said.

There are about 62,000 registered Kashmiri migrant families in the country out of which nearly 40,000 stay in Jammu, 20,000 in Delhi and remaining 2,000 in other parts of the country.

The migrants were provided with 3,000 jobs in 2008 under which 1,963 jobs were provided by the state government out of which 1,597 have joined.

Besides this, another package of Rs 2,000 crore was announced last month under which additional 3,000 jobs will be provided to Kashmir migrants besides construction of transit accommodations in the Kashmir Valley, he said.