People await change promised in back-to-village programme
Vikram Sharma
Tribune News Service
Jammu, February 24
People in Jammu are still awaiting the results of the back-to-village programme, which was started by the Jammu and Kashmir Government in June last year. Residents have called it a futile exercise.
The first phase of the flagship programme was launched in June last year and the second phase was launched following the abrogation of Article 370 in November last year.
“The nodal officers visited villages, listened to the grievances of people, completed their paperwork and vanished. It is now been nearly 10 months, but we haven’t seen any change on the ground or any feedback from the officials,” said Bhadur Lal, sarpanch, Nihalpur, Simbal, in the RS Pura block.
He said the exercise was futile as no work could be initiated due to the involvement of various departments in one project.
“Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar also visited RS Pura, but the grievances of people could not reach him in the right perspective,” said Lal.
Under the programme, government officials visited all 4,483 panchayat halqas to get feedback from the people at the grass-roots level. A gazetted officer, who was made the nodal officer, was deputed to each panchayat halqa to interact with the panchayat members and people to get the feedback.
The programme was primarily aimed at directing developmental efforts in the rural areas through community participation and to create in the rural population an earnest desire for decent standard of living.
“The need for development in urban settings is as important as it is in rural areas. The Centre must take a holistic view of the congested roads, sanitation woes and electricity and water problems in many areas. This calls for urgent address. Employment generation and tourism expansion is another area of concern,” said Deepak Gupta, a businessman at Raghunath Pura.
“Central ministers need to assess the true value of the government departments working in the UT which will reflect the clear picture for a feedback,” he said.
Sarpanch from Bhagani, Bhalwal, Mohammad Anwar, said: “The primary concern in rural areas is to provide amenities aimed at honing the skills of youth in agriculture and horticulture and providing them attracting opportunities so that their migration to urban areas could be stopped. Besides, the damage caused to the farming sector by nature’s fury should have been addressed in a time-bound manner but it has not happened.”
Though the people, both in rural as well as urban areas had welcomed the Centre’s initiative of sending Union Ministers to J&K to listen to the grievances of people, they expect the government both in the UT as well at the Centre to deliver on the ground.
