Mailbag

Increasing unemployment

Sir,

The unemployment problem is very much in our State and is increasing day by day as most of the educated youth who comes out from various institutions, fail to get jobs any where, in the State.

An official estimate shows that in 1988 there were only 42,000 educated unemployed youth in J&K State. The number is increasing largely and now it has crossed over, 1,75000 by the year 1998. Although the C.M. of J&K State has assured during his poll campaign that his Government will create 26,000 posts in order to resolve the crisis of unemployed youth. But no deserving candidates have been selected in Government job or semi Government institution. Not a single appointment is made by the Government through interview with the result that more unemployment has increased.

All the IV Class appointments are made by the heads of the departments on the instructions of the Ministers concerned. This back door entry process has also restricted the entry of meritorious candidates simply because either they don't have connections with the ruling elite or they cannot afford the huge amount in order to bribe the concerned authorities.

It is worthwhile to mention here that unemployment is one of the important factors responsible for the militancy in J&K. The size of employment in any State or country depends considerably on the levels of development. But it is very surprising and painful that the State Government as well as the Central Government is not paying any attention towards the problems of unemployment. The Government should take up this problem and absorb the unemployed youth otherwise this problem will create a great danger for the country.

Unemployment has a very high linkage with poverty and income distribution. It is only leads to tremendous economic hardship, but also brings mental agony. The roots of the current problem of youth unrest, growing militancy and increasing crime rates can to a large extent be traced in the problem of un-employment in the State. Even

after formulating a number of developmental schemes, like IRDP JRY and MSY, none of them has shown the proper impact in our State, particularly in rural areas.

Even after 50 years of independence, our youths are still facing those problems which would have been wiped out since long.

In fact nepotism and graft have broken the back of our youth. We could have satisfied ourselves, had our youth been morally and spiritually satisfied. It is only the N.C. Government and its wrong policies that youths are widely joining the militancy in the State.

Yours etc..........
Ghulam Qadir Zargar
Village Bagla (Doda)

Pollution problem

Sir,

This is in the reference to the letter by A H Rather which appeared in Daily Excelsior dated 30.11.98. In the write up the writer has touched a common issue of Cigarette smoking. According to writer cigarette smoking is a minor cause of air pollution. But today pollution has become a common man's problem. With growth in population, pollution has increased many folds. Pollution may be of various types such as :-

Air pollution, Water Pollution, Noise Pollution etc. etc.

Air pollution is caused mainly by vehicles and industries. This smoke contains cholorflouro carbon which is highly toxic and harmful for human beings. It is also the factor behind depletion of the Ozone layer which is the protective layer of atmosphere preventing harmful infrared and ultra-voilet rays of sun from entering into atmospheric cover of earth. Air pollution generally causes respiratory diseases, such as lung cancer, asthema, suffocation, eye irritation skin cancer etc.

Recent studies show that air pollution is responsible for 3 to 7 lakh premature deaths annually. In rural areas of India about 400-700 million people mainly women and children are effected by smoking indoor air.

This increase in air pollution is caused due to cutting of forest wealth for various development activities such as road, irrigation, power projects etc.

According to a survey only 19.5 percent of total geographical area is covered with forests as against national goal of 33 percent for plains and 66 percent for hilly regions.

After air pollution water pollution is the main problem faced by man. Major rivers of the country have come under pollution grip. Toxic wastes from industries, human waste, acid rains, are major causes of water pollution. This is due to water pollution our water bodies and growth of our aquatic florA and fauna has been adversely affected.

Third type of pollution (mentioned above) is noise pollution. Noise pollution can cause disorders and diseases such as loss of hearing, cardiovascular problem, mental disorientation etc. Main cause of noise pollution are automobiles, population density, industrial activities. In big cities Noise Pollution is on increasing trend.

So to check pollution is most difficult work because it is directly related to population growth and industrial development. Every one should be thankful to Government for running various pollution controlling schemes for our's benefit. One such example is the project to clean Dal Lake, therefore, it is prime responsibility of every citizen to co-operate with Govt to make such schemes successfully.

Yours etc...
Sandeep Rana
R/o Near Police Station,
Doda City.

No appeasement

Sir

Ever since the dawn of civilization it is India (old Bharat) and India only which has the unique distinction of having no ill will against any country, let alone its neighbour, never having invaded any country and subjected it to its domination. Contrary to this civilised behaviour of India, it is the other countries and religious bigots who have waged wars against it, stayed here, ruled over it and also started the nefarious act of proselytisation of its sobre and gentle nationals, spread alien culture which the gullible Indians unhesitatingly inherited.

There does seem no end to the casting of evil eye over India, whether it is west or the north. In such a situation if the forty years' perpetual rule of the Indian National Congress did nothing except filling their coffers and the present Central Government did a wonderful job of keeping enemies aware of India possessing enough strength to face situation and telling the world that it is not October 1962 today, why should our Prime Minister go a begging here and there and assuring the self-assumed world policeman that we have exploded the nuclear device to protect ourselves and not to invade any country least of all our neighbours because Indian ethos, Indian civilisational contours have never cast an evil eye over any country. History is witness to it. It was India ingenuity that agreed to partition rather than allow the foreigners to continue to rule us and loot us. Therefore one feels that there is no necessity on our part to make an attempt to appease the inherited policeman and his ilk.

Yours etc....
(R.K. Sher)
Jammu

Corruption and inflation

Sir,

Corruption is eating into the very vitals of our society. It has degraded our social, moral and ethical values. Corruption is getting institutionalised day by day. With the enhanced pay and pay scales, the corruption also enhances. Earlier people used to get their petty works done by paying Rs 10 or Rs 20/- but now less than Rs 50/- is unacceptable to the custodians of Government system. Reason A Jr. Asstt. also gets his salary around Rs 5000/- per month and accepting Rs 10/- as bribe is considered below his dignity and such people expect minimum of Rs 50/-. Enhancing of pay and pay scales adversely affects the poor masses who are made to shuttle between offices by their servants i.e public servants.

Corruption has many bad ramifications. Such as :-

a) It changes the normal behaviour of the corrupt persons. He becomes more materialistic and his approach becomes money minded. He changes his behaviour towards his friends, relatives and wants to live aloof of them. A corrupt public servant will never like to be friend of any body except another corrupt person as it adversely affects his business of collecting illegal gratification.

b) Corruption has the biggest impact on increasing the price, level i.e it results in inflationary trends in the economy. A corrupt person never cares for the prices of the commodities because he wants to enjoy with his ill-earned money. The purchasing power and will of a corrupt person is far more than an honest public servant. Howsoever, highly paid the latter may be. So corruption results in inflation in the economy. Due to prevailing corruption, expenditure on getting jobs done in govt. offices gets increased. A Nakal or report from Patwari may cost you minimum of Rs 50/- besides cost of papers and stamps etc. So far a layman cost of existence gets inflated by Rs 50/-. Similarly, in other offices he has to grease the palm of public servants for his day to day works like depositing of electricity bills, water bills, tax of shop etc. Wherever, one goes he has to pay some amount in excess of what is actually payable. In revenue collecting offices, clerks do not accept your payment unless accompanied with excess amount or alternatively they will not return you the balance amount under garb of ''change is not available''.

c) Collection posts of Traffic Police and Commercial Taxation Department give a very big boost to inflation. A truck driver keeps a provision of minimum of Rs 100/- or more than hundred per trip as 'way expenditure' which he charges from the customer. A truck load of sand should not cost more than Rs 400/- in vicinity of Jammu but when 'way-expenditure' is added up he will charge Rs 500/- or Rs 550/- Due to corruption by traffic police, a push up of Rs 150/- on each trip of truck is getting included, so it is resulting in inflation in the economy. Same is the case with other modes of personal or goods transportation. Auto, Mini-buses, metadors, buses etc. fix their fares by keeping provision for corruption. Once cost of transportation is enhanced, it will have wider impact on pushing up the prices. You take any aspect of day to day activity and if corruption is prevailing there in any form at any stage, it will have the impact of increasing the living etc. If society and govt activities can be made corruption free consumer price index will drastically slide down and poor people of this rich country will have a sigh of relief. Corruption can be totally stopped if there is will to do so on the part of the government.

Yours etc...
Ramesh Chander
Village Payan (Akhnoor)