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Govt vows to safe-guard minorities
Pak response to PM's peace initiative not matching: Saxena

Excelsior Special Correspondent

JAMMU, Feb 12: The Jammu and Kashmir Governor, Mr Girish Chandra Saxena today said that Prime Minister's peace initiative in the State will bear fruit only if the militants and their mentors give matching response.

Addressing the Joint Session of Jammu and Kashmir Legislature the Governor welcomed the spirit behind the peace initiative saying that "in the ultimate analysis, violence and counter violence have proved to be utterly futile". He said, his Government firmly believed that these initiatives to bear fruit, the 'other side' and their mentors have to requite the spirit of amity which informs this initiative". He said the situation in this behalf needs to be watched very carefully.

The Governor in his 40-minute address referred to the barbaric killings of innocent Sikhs in Srinagar and said that it had saddened every heart. The Government is committed to safeguard the lives and properties of all the people, particularly minorities wherever they may be residing, he said and added that notwithstanding attempts to communalize this stark tragedy, his Government is fully aware that the people of the State are at one with their Sikh brothers and sisters in their moment of intense grief. He said his Government is of the firm belief that the fissiparous designs actuating this carnage will soon be evident to everyone and will thus be a dismal failure.

Referring to the trial and tribulations the people faced from the "chronic malady of foreign inspired and foreign funded militancy, the Governor said that "the inimical and irresponsible foreign neighbour continued to stoke the embers of a lingering proxy war". Saying that involvement of our misguided youth is showing downward trend, he asserted that the foreign mercenaries comprising hirelings and bigoted zealots are sustaining it. Giving facts and figures, he said these brigands killed 762 civilians, 35 of them were political activists, during last year. He made special reference to the martyrdom of Sh Ghulam Hassan Bhat, Minister of State for Power and said that Government, legislature and the people extend deepest sympathy to the bereaved family.

Mr Saxena said that "notwithstanding the loss of life of this magnitude, the commitment of my Government to persevere relentlessly in its effort to quell this menace continued and shall be pursued with equal determination in future". He said it is a matter of pride for his Government that even its most trenchant critics have not called in question its resolve to uphold the rule of law and deal with the cult of violence most energetically.

Asserting that situation has improved in the State as compared to previous year the Governor said that one indicator was an appreciable decline in the death of civilians. Paying tributes to the gallant members of the State police and the central forces for their supreme sacrifices, he said that 86 J&K police personnel and 315 other members of the security personnel laid their lives in fighting militancy. 70 SPOs and 15 VDC members too have laid their lives. The forces have killed 1520 hardcore militants during the year.

The Governor called upon all members of the legislature to eschew narrow political and parochial interests and to work for a united and prosperous State for the larger good of our people.

Listing conduct of Census operation and initiation of Panchayat elections after 23 years despite heavy odds as major achievements of the Government, the Governor said that these would turn out to be a milestone in the State's history. The democratization of the Panchayati institutions would be bedrock of a strong and people-oriented development administration. He made a special mention of the overwhelming and enthusiastic participation of the both the candidates and electors and said that this process so far has set at rest the earlier doubts on this score. He said this spontaneous response epitomizes, in an abundant measure, the desire of the people to be part of a resurgent democratic polity. The need of the hour is to build on this groundswell of the popular mandate for peace and normalcy, he added. He complimented the employees for the good work done by them in completing the census operation and said that census data would be of immense value for the development of the State.

Announcing the elections to co-operative institutions, the Governor said that the Government have drawn up a concrete action plan for holding elections to co-operative societies and federations by May this year. This, together with the revivification of Panchayats, would make villages the hub of economically productive activities.

The Governor in his 24-page address has touched the various efforts made by the Government to mop up the resources, expedite pace of development and mitigate hardships of the people in the militancy torn State. The Government had prudently managed finances of the State during the year, which led to significant alleviation of the fiscal situation. He said there is not even a signal instance of refusal to honour a claim for non-availability of funds. Instead the past liabilities on account of procurement of food-grains and purchase of electricity before 1997 were partially honoured. The Government effectively demolished the canard about the bankruptcy of the State exchequer and despite the continued resource crunch the management of finances was arguably the best among all special category States, he added.

He acknowledged that award of the Eleventh Finance Commission played an important role in this partial fiscal recovery as it included a liberal assessment of the revenue gap filling grant under Constitution of India. He said this liberal dispensation was, however, diluted with the 50 per cent reduction in our share of taxes from the divisible pool. Supplementary report of the commission authorizing the Central Government to withhold 15 per cent of our grants amounting to Rs. 300 crores and making the release of such grants contingent on our performance in the field of fiscal reforms is likely to further dissipate the open-handedness of the Commission. He said while we fully subscribe to the need and, indeed inevitability of fiscal reform this cannot be achieved overnight. There has to be a long-term perspective within which annual action plans can be mutually agreed upon.

Seeking reconsideration of this issue by the Centre, the Governor said the State Government have already signed MoU binding itself to conform to the stipulated parameters of the fiscal performance. He said the State Government has almost wholly kept its side of the bargain in the MoU.

Highlighting the achievements of the Government, he said the finance and planning commissions have favourably noticed our record increase in tax collection. These alongwith the austerity measures have helped in arresting the growth of non-developmental expenditure. The budgetary support to PSUs are being tapered of and the decision to close down Himalayan Wool Combers and the Handloom and Handicrafts Raw Material Production Organisation is under implementation. He said with increased public awareness about the urgent need to augment the State's finances as necessary pre condition for improving quality of life, there would be a steady improvement in tax and revenue collection.

The Governor said given the over all constraints of resources, a wide-spread drought like situation and grim power scenario, the performance of the economy cannot be said to be particularly disappointing. The per capita growth rates were respectively 1.89 per cent and 7.26 per cent at constant and current prices while the growth rates for the Net State's Domestic Product were 4.5 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. On the price-front the general rise in index was a modest 19 points or around 3.8 per cent. He said the State's current year's Annual Plan has once again pegged at Rs. 1750 crores which represented the revised outlay of 1998-99. The plan finalization has taken place as recently as January 5 when more than three-fourth of the financial year was over. With a sharp rise in the Revenue component of the Plan and tying up of significant outlays in earmarked segments the net availability of investment in sectors has become woefully inadequate and has left us with virtually no manoeuverability for undertaking new initiatives. The deleterious effects of this State of affairs cannot be over emphasized, he said adding that it will have far reaching implications on the growth and prosperity of our people. The Government has already taken up the matter with Planning Commission and Prime Minister to the crying need to arrest these ill-advised centripetal exercises.

Referring to the severe drought conditions, the Governor said that we shall have to look for exogenous assistance from the Central Government and elsewhere as with the limited available funds under the State's Calamity Relief Fund the problem cannot be solved. He said Rs. 26.92 crore was allocated from the fund for drought hit families in the rural areas of Kashmir valley and Doda district during this year.

The Governor said that despite drought and failure of Rabbi crop 14 per cent increase has been registered in agriculture production. An additional area of 2000 hectares has been brought under fruit cultivation and the horticulture sector alone contributed Rs. 1000 crores to the State's economy. A Rs. 5 crore pilot project for development of pashmina wool has been submitted to the Centre. In the rural development sector 157 works under JGSY and 3463 houses under IAY where constructed besides generating 16.89 lakh mandays under EAS. Under the recently announced PMGY 1523 projects for providing inter-village connectivity of 4678 kms. with an outlay of Rs. 934 crores has been submitted to Centre for approval. Work on some of these projects is being taken up during the current fiscal year. For construction of roads and bridges considerable institutional finance has been tapped and out of 6477 inhabited villages 4243 have already been connected by roads. In addition 52 major and 116 minor bridges destroyed through subversion have been reconstructed. Several PHE schemes are under way to ensure cent per cent coverage of Srinagar and Udhampur districts with allocation of Rs. 25 crores each while 174 rural water supply schemes would be completed within the current year.

Mr Saxena said the power situation continues to cause serious hardships to all sections of the society as the hiatus between demand and supply continued to grow. The aggravating factors were the inability of the Northern Grid to augment its share due to the overall deficit in other participating States and the sharp fall in our indigenous generation due to extreme water scarcity. This is despite creation of 42.50 MW internal generation capacity through Upper Sindh Hydel Project.

Indicating that the situation will continue to be grim as we depend on Northern Grid, he said long term solution is to concentrate on indigenously generated power. A beginning has been made to set up 450 MW Baglihar and 600 MW Sawalkote. The Baglihar project likely to be completed December 2004. For Sawalkote a consortium has offered to arrange finances without Government guarantee and complete it within seven years. A MoU has been signed with the Centre for seven projects with installed capacity of 2798 MWs. The State will get 12 per cent of the generated power free of cost besides annual royalty of Rs. 550 crores. He said his Government has its road map ready for reaching the goal of self-sufficiency in power consumption and making power generation a major instrument of resource mobilisation. It is the earnest endeavour of his Government to maximize internal generation. He urged the members to effectively inform the people about the pros and cons and prospectus besetting our power sector so that instead of looking at dramatic solutions there is a realistic assessment of the literally and figuratively, brighter days that lie ahead.

The Governor said innovative Rehbar-e-Taleem scheme has been launched and around 5000 teachers appointed. Rs. 65 crore World Bank assisted project to modernise polytechnic education in underway. A software technology park has been set up at Srinagar at a cost of Rs. 6.11 crore while another park is being established at Kartholi, Jammu. The SRTC increase its revenue by 70 per cent and the SFC crossed the break even point and paid a royalty of Rs. 13.20 crores to the Government.

The Governor said that despite disturbed conditions the pilgrim influx to Mata Vaishno Shrine crossed five million mark and 1.75 lakh pilgrims visited the Amarnath Ji Shrine despite the tragic events of 1str August at Pahalgam. He said to tackle the un-employment problem, the Government is opening avenues of employment both inside and outside the State including under the self-employment sector. An employment cell has been set up at New Delhi for providing employment to professionals in organizations located elsewhere in the country and overseas and so far 1500 cases have been sponsored by the cell to various organizations.

Mr Saxena said that Government is making concerted efforts to bring in transparency in accountability in public services. While the PWD and PHE departments have introduced a system of receiving and addressing public grievances, citizens' charter have been introduced in respect of a number of departments. To acquaint the public with these charters and other initiatives taken in their interest, a Newsletter has been introduced. He said the Government is also actively considering bringing in a scheme enabling the general public to obtain information from the Government. He said the Government is also considering a proposal to amend the prevention of corruption act to declare making of unauthorized appointments, irrespective of whether such appointments were made for pecuniary or other gains, an offence.

The Governor paid rich tributes Madr-e-Meharban, Begum Akbar Jehan and said that with her demise an important chapter in modern history of the J&K came to a close. She made sterling contribution in the public life.

Another power line blasted
4 militants, two cops killed in Rajouri, Doda

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, Feb 12: Army gunned down four militants in an encounter at Khanetar Gali in Jharan Wali Gali (JWG) of Rajouri district this evening. A Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) was injured in the cross-firing.

In Banihal area of Doda district, militants blasted another transmission line—second in the last two days—while two police constables drowned in a nullah during a search operation in Dachchan area.

Official sources in Rajouri said that troops of JWG Brigade were carrying out routine patrolling in Khanetar Gali when they were fired upon by a group of militants. Troops took positions and retaliated.

Exchange of firing continued for two and a half hour. Initially, army personnel eliminated two militants while two others managed to escape. However, troops chased and eliminated both the fleeing militants. A JCO Naib Subedar Shankar Singh was injured in the exchange of firing.

JCO was shifted to an army hospital in serious condition. However, he was responding to treatment and army sources tonight described his condition as stable.

A dhok, where the militants had taken shelter, was also blown up during the gun-fighting, the sources said, adding the slain militants were believed to be the cadres of Lashkar-e-Toiba and hailed from Pakistan. From their possession, army recovered four AK-47 rifles, 13 magazines, 394 rounds, 11 hand grenades and two wireless sets.

Bodies of slain ultras have been recovered from the scene of encounter and kept in a camp for identification, which hadn’t been carried out so far. One of them was suspected to be ‘commander’ of an outfit.

Meanwhile, our Ramban correspondent reports, militants blasted another transmission line at village Ratanwas, about three kms short of Banihal and close to Jammu-Srinagar national highway at 0345 hours today.

Militants used the same modus operandi, like the one used the previous night at Bankoot, in blasting 220 KV Kishenpur-Srinagar line. They first cut the towers and then planted an explosive device with one of the towers triggering an explosion.

However, sources said, the explosion was of low intensity compared to the first blast triggered at 132 KV Udhampur-Pampore line. SDPO Banihal Rupinder Chalotra visited the site of blast for investigations. Power supply to some areas was reportedly disrupted due to the explosion.

Meanwhile, two constables of Special Task Force (STF) were washed away in a nullah at Dachchan while an Inspector sustained minor injuries when they were on way to Marwah for a search operation. Deceased cops have been identified as Mangat Ram R/o Dachchan and Raj Kumar. Injured Inspector was Shailly Singh.

People held protests in Dachchan against the death of constables. SSP Doda Ashkoor Wani is leaving for the spot tomorrow.