Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 7: The Jammu and Kashmir Batwal Welfare Association held a meeting which was attended by a large number of Batwal Community members.
The meeting discussed the socio-economic condition of Batwal community people of urban, rural and hilly areas living in acute poverty. Association President Sat Paul Lakhotra urged the Government of India for sanctioning of a ‘Special Economic Package’ to them based on the survey report of their ethnographic study undertaken by the Central Planning Commission in 1994.
Lakhotra stated that in 1994, the Government of India with an object to ameliorate the living standard of the Batwal Community members, launched a study to assess their socio, economic and cultural life in the J&K State, adding that the field work, as laid down by the Planning Commission, started in about forty villages of Jammu region, got completed by the end of April, 1995.
“Thereafter, the then Deputy Registrar General, India visited the State and exchanged the views with the elite of the Batwal Community to explore the ethnographic/anthropological back ground and other related details and also collected the Survey Report from the Directorate of Census Operations, J&K but even after passage of twenty three years, nothing has been done for the upliftment of the Batwal Community,” added Lakhotra.
Lakhotra further said that increase in prices of essential commodities including medicine, rice, flour, sugar, tea and oil have adversely affected the poor. He urged the Government to control and bring down the prices of the same.
Earlier, the Association members prayed for eternal peace for the departed souls of Major Kamlesh Pandey and SepoyTanjin Chhultim of 62 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) who were killed in firing by militants at Zainapora in Shopian district of Kashmir during a cordon and search operation.
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