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- Azadi to radical Islamists, slavery for patriots - 3
- Hari Om
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I will focus only on seven issues to make the point that Jammu is indeed a victim of gross discrimination. These include poor road connectivity, inadequate power generation units, small number of administrative units, acute unemployment, glaring disparity in wages, wrong admission policy, and invidious distinctions as far as allotment of funds are concerned.
One: The road length in Kashmir, which has a land area of less than 16,000 sq km, was 7,129 kilometers in November 2006. In contrast, the road length in Jammu with an area almost two times that of Kashmir was just 4,571 kilometers.
Two: Chenani in Jammu province is the only State Power Plant with an installed capacity of 25 MW. The remaining State Power Plants with an installed capacity of 333.36 MW are in the Kashmir Valley. Besides, there are a number of gas turbines in Kashmir, which also cater to the needs of its people.
Three: Kashmir province has ten districts at the rate of one per 1585.3 sq km on an average, with a few districts being only one-tehsil districts. In contrast, Jammu province too has ten districts, but at the rate of one per 2629.3 sq km on average. One glaring example: Srinagar district in Kashmir with a land area of 2,228 sq km and which consisted of only 168 villages was divided two years ago into two districts – Srinagar and Ganderbal. In contrast, Jammu district having an area of 3,079 sq km and which consisted of 1,054 villages was left high and dry, notwithstanding the creation of Samba district out of it.
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Four: The unemployment rate in Kashmir is less than 30 percent. In contrast, the unemployment rate in Jammu province is 69.75 percent. The people of Jammu have very little representation in the Civil Secretariat. According to a government report of 2007, the number of employees working in the Civil Secretariat was 1715. These include gazetted, non-gazetted and class IV employees. The number of gazetted officers was 199. The share of Kashmir was 118 (56 percent) and that of Jammu 81 (44 percent). As for the number of non-gazetted employees, it was 1041 (767 or 73.67 percent from Kashmir and 274 or 26.23 percent from Jammu). The number of class IV employees was 363 (256 or 70.52 percent from Kashmir and 107 or 29.48 percent from Jammu).
Five: Each Jammu-based worker in the Public Health Engineering Department under the Community Participation Scheme (CPC) gets a monthly wage of Rs 500, as against the monthly wage of Rs 2100 for his Kashmiri counterpart.
Six: A scrutiny of the MBBS/BDS selection lists reveals that Jammu’s share in the State’s medical colleges dwindled from 60 percent in 1990 to 52 percent in 1991 to 38 percent in 1994 to 36 percent in 1995 to 20 percent in 1997 to 17 percent in 1998. Between 1998 and 2008, the share of Jammu in these colleges was only marginal.
Seven: The development of Jammu province has been prevented by inadequate funds allotted to it. For example, in the Eighth five year plan (1992-1997), Ninth Plan (1997-2002), Tenth Plan (2002-2007) and Eleventh Plan (2007-2012) Jammu’s share in such sectors as agriculture was Rs 57.61 crore; 147.31 crore; 270.49 crore; and 337.56 crores, respectively. In contrast, the share of Kashmir was 104.5 crore; 253.17 crore; 380.29 crore; and 519.41 crore, respectively.
This is just one example. The story regarding irrigation, roads and buildings, health, tourism, sewerage, drainage, housing and urban development, and power is no different.
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