9 years, 2 governments later, no headway in establishment of 'press colonies' in J&K

JAMMU: For the last over eight years, successive governments' representatives have doled repeated assurances inside the house of legislatures and through public rallies to provide all sort of help to the media persons in the state including 'residential colonies', but as on date, such promises of the governments have remained in air only.
One of major assurances among these was the establishment of press colonies in Jammu and Kashmir for the media persons. In the year 2009, Omar government assured on the floor of the House that it was going to construct two press colonies, one each at Jammu and Srinagar to provide accommodation to the media persons.
Later, the issue was raised several times by then BJP legislators including Ashok Khajuria and Jugal Kishore Sharma.
Sources said that on the demand of the then BJP MLAs, the Omar Abdullah government even set into motion the process for the establishment of press colonies.
They said that various options including the possibility of setting up the colonies through Housing Board were examined by the NC-Congress government.
"The housing board was even asked to prepare proposal for construction of about 200 flats each at Jammu and Srinagar. Later, the Housing and Urban Development Department was approached for the identification of sites for the press colonies both at Jammu and Srinagar through JDA and SDA," sources said.
Sources further said that accordingly around 300 kanals of land under survey number 7, 8 and 11 situated at Nambli Narkara, Tehsil and District Budgam recorded as state land under possession of armed forces was vacated and identified for establishment of media colony at Srinagar.
'Similarly in Jammu," sources said, " the Housing and Urban Development Department vide communication number UD-16/2011/SDA dated February 27, 2012 told the then government that land measuring 40 kanals was identified for media persons in Udheywala abutting Gajansoo road, Jammu.
"Until 2015-the year when PDP formed coalition government with BJP- the NC-Congress government representatives assured time and again that work on establishment of colonies would start soon but nothing was materialized on ground," sources asserted.
They further added that after PDP-BJP government formation in March 2015, the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government and following his death, the Mehbooba Mufti government claimed repeatedly that it would provide accommodation to the media persons but as on date, nothing of sort has been done.
All attempts to contact turned futile as Dr Abdul Rashid Secretary Information Department was not available for the comments.