* Sharp cut in allocation for UDAAN Scheme
Neeraj Rohmetra
Jammu, Apr 26: In a major policy decision, Union Home Ministry has accorded its approval for a rehabilitation plan aimed to bring back Kashmiri Migrants to Valley, which envisaged providing additional three thousand new jobs and construction of six thousand transit accommodation on non-sharing basis.
The Rehabilitation plan proposal has also been circulated to Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Defence and Ministry of External Affairs for their comments and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has also approached the Union Cabinet for its formal approval for the proposal.
Besides, the MHA has also accorded its approval for enhancement of cash relief to the Kashmiri migrants from the present level of Rs 1650 per person per month (maximum Rs 6600 per month per family) to Rs 2500 per person per month (maximum Rs 10,000 per family). The case has already been sent to the Union Ministry of Finance for its concurrence at the earliest.
These observations have been made in the Report of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, which was placed before the Parliament few days back.
Pointing to the status of the Rehabilitation Plan prepared by MHA, the Report whose copy is in possession of EXCELSIOR says, “the Ministry is waiting for a Cabinet approval of the same and the MHA has already made a provision for the funds required for the Rehabilitation Plan in the next year’s budget”.
The fresh plan proposed to enhance the relief given to Kashmiri migrants as well as to provide relief to the migrants of terror affected hill region of Jammu, besides the arrears are to be paid to the Delhi Government for relief being paid to Kashmiri migrants by them.
“In principle, approval has been accorded for the Scheme for providing State Government jobs to the Kashmiri migrants and constructing transit accommodation for them. In view of the past experiences on packages dealing with rehabilitation for Kashmir migrants, prior consultations have taken place with State Government officials and representatives of the migrants in this regards”, says the Report.
The Report added, “the present plan got delayed because MHA had to make a lot of consultations with people and had to reach a consensus about how to go forward so that the plan could be made successful. A lot of consultation took place with all the stakeholders”.
Keeping in mind, the proposed Rehabilitation plan, the allocation for Relief and Rehabilitation of J&K Migrants by the MHA has been increased to the tune of Rs 580 crore in Budget Estimated (BE) 2015-16 from Rs 341.50 crore (2014-15). Justifying this major increase, the Ministry has stated that the allocation made available for the Department of J&K Affairs under Security Related Expenditure (SRE), Relief and Rehabilitation has further been reallocated.
The Ministry has further stated that the budget provision of Department of J&K Affairs under SRE (Relief and Rehabilitation) has been increased from Rs 160 crores in RE (2014-15) to Rs 260 crores to clear the backlog of Rs 111.21 crores nearly of the year 2014-15 and this is to be reimbursed in the year 2015-16 in addition to the claims of the State Government for the financial year 2015-16.
The SRE (R&R) for Rehabilitation of displaced Kashmiri migrants has been enhanced from 181 crore (2014-15) to Rs 320 crores (2015-16).
While strongly emphasising on return of migrants to the Valley, the Parliamentary Standing Committee in its Report says, “the Ministry should pursue the matter with Cabinet Secretariat for early approval of the proposed rehabilitation plan and utilize the allocated funds during the current fiscal”, adding, “the Government should also look positively into the proposal of the State Government of J&K in the existing PM’s package for Relief and Rehabilitation of Kashmiri Migrants”.
“Views of the State Government along with representatives of the migrants should be given priority while finalizing or reformulating any package or rehabilitation plan of the migrants”, says the document adding, “the Committee notes that the Ministry has accorded approval for enhancement of cash relief to the Kashmiri migrants from the present level of Rs 1650 per person per month to Rs 2500 per person per month and recommends that the matter should be pursued vigorously with the Ministry of Finance for their concurrence”.
Castigating the Union Finance Ministry for reducing allocation under the Plan Scheme — “Special Industry Initiative for J&K — UDAAN”, the Report says, “Committee observed with dismay that inspite of the 100% utilization of funds this scheme, the Finance Ministry has allocated meagre amount of Rs 45 crore for the scheme against the projected demand of Rs 120 crore for the current financial year”.
The Committee recommended that the Finance Ministry should look positively into the projected demand of the Rs 120 crore of the Ministry, while sanctioning additional amount at RE stage as this is targeted to bring back Kashmiri youth into the mainstream so that they don’t fall prey to anti-national activities.
The Joint Secretary (Kashmir) informed the Committee that the scheme was sanctioned in 2001; however, guidelines were revised in 2013 and due to this scheme actually took off in the year 2013.
The Home Secretary while deposing before the Parliamentary Committee said, “the scheme is contingent on the response that we get from the corporate companies. Till now the response wasn’t that good” adding, “this year we are approaching the corporates and so far 67 companies have shown interest. Our target is to train 75,000 graduates and post -graduates. 13,000 have been selected for training so far and 7000 have joined the training; 2500 have been offered jobs and out of them 1800 have accepted the offer”.
“We shall approach the Finance Ministry for a higher outlay, if the response continue to be what it is today”, submitted the Home Secretary before the Parliamentary Committee.
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