A survey conducted under the aegis of Central Government’s NITI Ayog of works executed under Border Area Development Programme (BADP) in 96 districts of 17 Border States in the country including Jammu and Kashmir, is depressing. A team of experts deployed to assess how far the scheme had reached the people in border areas and how far it had made an impact on their lives has made ominous reporting that puts policy planners in an embarrassing situation. In particular, the team visited a number of border villages in Jammu and Kashmir and interacted with the local residents, Sarpanchs and Panchs and the members of Gram Sabhas. These village elders expressed to their great dissatisfaction that the Border Area Development authorities never took them into confidence and never consulted them about the developmental schemes that should have been drawn for their respective clusters of villages. The general complaint was that they were never told what the Border Development Programme was and what was the methodology of undertaking these programmes. It was as if the Gram Sabha elders, the Sarpanchs and Panchs were irrelevant and did not need to be consulted. The village folks said that not a single work of development has taken place last three or four years. The surveyors have noted that no sufficient BADP funds were utilized for raising infrastructure, roads, schools, hospitals, dental clinics, blood banks, veterinary aid centers, irrigation, sanitation, lanes, bridges, power infrastructure, mobile dispensaries, shelters for border dwellers, irrigation kools, drinking water augmentation, de-silting of ponds and wells, opening PDS shops/ depots, community halls, parks and gardens etc. Why not funds were utilized and where the funds are right now, is a matter that merits an inquiry by the SVO. It is criminal not to utilize funds for the welfare of the people and for improving the infrastructure so badly needed. The people of this state cannot afford to see development plans scuttled like that and they left to poverty and deprivation.
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