Waqf Boards in J&K, Ladakh soon: Naqvi

Quote:

Edu infra on its land

The Centre will construct schools, colleges, ITIs, polytechnics, girls hostels, hospitals, community halls, skill development centres and other basic infrastructure on Waqf land, ensuring quality education for the needy and employment opportunities to the youths. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Minority Affairs Minister

New Delhi, December 4

Waqf Boards will soon be established in the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, and the process for it had already started, Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Friday.

After chairing a Central Waqf Council meeting here, Naqvi in a statement said that Waqf Boards would be established in Jammu-Kashmir and Leh-Kargil areas for the first time since Independence.

It had become possible to do so only after the revocation of Article 370 and the Waqf Boards would ensure proper utilisation of Waqf properties for the welfare of society, he said.

The Union Government would provide adequate financial assistance to construct infrastructure for socio-economic and educational activities on Waqf properties in the UTs under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karykram (PMJVK)’, Naqvi said.

There were thousands of Waqf properties in the Jammu-Kashmir and the Leh-Kargil areas and the process had been started to register them, he said in the statement.

Digitisation, geo-tagging or GPS mapping of these Waqf properties had also been initiated and the work would be completed soon, the minister said.

In Friday’s meeting, while taking serious note of bungling and encroachment of Waqf properties by “Waqf mafias” in several states, state governments were asked to take strict action in such cases, Naqvi said. He said a team of the Central Waqf Council would visit these states in this regard. PTI