Express grave concern over Leh situation
Jammu, Sept. 29 : An eleven member high level delegation of congress party led by Working President Shri Raman Bhalla along with other senior leaders met the Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha at Raj Bhawan today and submitted a detailed memorandum about the colossal loss due to recent rains, floods , sinking of lands and landslides, seeking a comprehensive package from the centre for the relief , rehabilitation of the affected people and the restoration and reconstruction of the damaged infrastructure, declaring it as a national disaster besides impressing upon the centre government for early restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir and also expressed concern over the situation in Leh, urging for resolving their legitimate demands through dialogue.
The delegation comprised of Former M.P. Ch. Lal Singh, Former Minister Mula Ram, Ex-MLA Th. Balwan Singh, Chief Spokesperson Ravinder Sharma, Former Minister Yogesh Sawhney, Ex-MLC Ved Mahajan, Ex-MLA Indu Pawar, Ex-MLC Naresh Gupta, Former Minister Shabir Ahmed Khan and Sr. Adv Shah Mohd. Choudhary.
The delegation submitted a detailed memorandum explaining the huge loss in different parts of Jammu region and parts of Kashmir Valley including huge loss to the houses and other private property including crops , vehicles , residential and agriculture lands and livestock due to rains, flash floods, land slides, sinking of lands at multiple places in the province. They also referred to the huge loss to the road connectivity, bridges and other public infrastructure of huge magnitude due to unprecedented calamity and demanded it to be declared as a national disaster to give maximum relief , proper rehabilitation of the affected people and the restoration and reconstruction of the damaged infrastructure.
The memorandum also detailed out that during the visit of PCC President Shri Tariq Hameed karra and senior leaders of the party to different affected areas, the people narrated certain lapses and inactions which speak of the manmade lapses contributing to the magnitude of the losses in the private and public property which should be investigated by the high level team aided by the experts . It also referred to the tragedy in Choshati in Kishtwar followed by Shri Mata Vaishno Devi and said that these could have been averted if due precautions taken in advance and demanded a high level independent probe to fix the responsibility .
The delegation also demanded that the government should relax the rules to cover the damages to the crops, houses, vehicles, pump sets of farmers in order to fully compensate them. The loss suffered by all the farmers including the orchardists/fruit growers/flower growers and other alike sectors including transporters should be fully compensated. The Govt. should provide free ration to the affected families for six months.
That the assessment teams for damages should comprise of technical experts and engineers for proper assessments. All left out cases of house damages, crop damages and other individual property damages should be included as there are numerous complaints pouring in, in this regard including meager damage assessments against major damages which needs to be reviewed.
That a high level team of experts from geology, and other related fields should visit all affected areas of landslides and land sinking places for identifying the reasons and to suggest measures to check further damage and risk being posed in such areas.
All the uprooted families due to landslides and land sinking should be relocated/ rehabilitated in the nearby safer localities, land of at least 10 marlas to construct houses and shelter for their livestock in the rural areas apart from allotment surplus of agricultural lands in the same village or nearby village for their cultivation where their agricultural lands have been destroyed. The Government should come out with a fair land and shelter policy for such population and families.
The KCC loans and power tariff of the affected farmers should be waived off along with compensation for their damages agricultural equipments, appliances, pump sets etc. The live stock compensation, waiver of dairy loans etc. and provision of subsidized seeds and fertilizers to the farmers be announced.
The provision of liberal sanctioning of crates to the affected people in the residential and agricultural areas should be introduced to check the erosion of soil posing danger to their residential houses and agricultural fields.
All the executing agencies of the UT and the NHAI and BRO should be directed to under take urgent repairs on war footing of the damaged road connectivity, bridges, vital links and expedite the completion of important roads projects in Kathua,Jammu-Akhnoor-Sunderbani, including early completion of tunnels and Udhampur – Srinager to minimize the hardships being faced by the common people.
That the farmers in the paddy belt of Dist. Jammu-R.S. Pura, Samba and Kathua are suffering a lot as the paddy crop is getting dry due to failure of the authorities to restore power supply and irrigation facilities to the crops. This should be immediately restored on war footing to save the further loss of farmers.
We hope and trust that the central government will announce and release a comprehensive mega relief and rehabilitation package without further delay in order to rehabilitate and settle all those affected people especially those disturbed/dislocated families due to land slides, sinking of lands, flashfloods before the onset of winter season.
That the congress party wants to impress upon the central government to fulfill the promise of restoration of full statehood to J&K without further delay, in order to settle the unrest amongst the people and for better coordination and implementation of the relief and rehabilitation measures at this juncture.
It is further impress upon the central government to fulfill the promise made to the people of Ladakh region and accede to all their legitimate demands and fulfill their aspirations without further delay through dialogue. We express our deep concern over the situation that has emerged there due to long delays on the part of centre and the incident of violence in the peace-loving region and urge the central government to take immediate CBMs to restore faith, peace and normalcy in the sensitive region.
That the security situation in several parts of the region is still vulnerable and there is fear and insecurity in several rural and remote areas of the region due to presence of terrorists being noticed and eliminated by the security forces. We urge for stepped up vigil, strengthening of security network in order to ensure safety and security of the people.
The Lt. Governor gave patient hearing to the delegation and assured them that he will forward their memorandum to the central government.
