Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has paid her first official visit to New Delhi after she was sworn in on April 4. In New Delhi, she has met with some Union Ministers including the Prime Minister, Finance Minister, External Affairs Minister and others. Apparently, it was a courtesy call after assuming the office, yet the Chief Minister appears to have done good home work before starting on her visit to New Delhi. Since she has taken up a variety of issues with concerned ministers and presented to the Prime Minister an overall view of the situation in the State after she assumed office, the visit was well a business exercise. She had a plethora of demands in her notebook which she unfolded and talked over one by one with the concerned ministers. We had earlier learnt that the Centre had included Srinagar and Jammu as two prospective smart cities in the State and the CM reiterated the demand to the PM for committing to consider the request. We have already learnt that the State is conducting exchange of ideas with Central authorities about the rehabilitation of the displaced people from the Valley. Evidently, the CM will have broached the matter of their rehabilitation in the proposed smart city. That would be a very practical and viable approach to the issue hanging fire for so many years. The second important issue, which she has been able to bring home to the Prime Minister, is about allocation of an additional quota of over four lakh metric tons of food grains to the state. As we know there has been some confusion in regard the implementation of NFSA in the State and the CM has found a via media in which she has proposed increase in the quantity of food grains supplied to the consumers in the state. She has received positive signals on this count.
In order to ensure smooth conduct of administration in the State, the CM has reiterated the demand for continuation of special dispensation of 50 per cent in promotion quota in All India Services-Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service and Indian Forest Service-for state service officers for another five years, beyond December 31, 2013.This would help the State in meeting the shortage of IAS, IPS and IFS officers.
It has to be remembered that the basis of coalition between PDP and BJP in the State is the Agreement of Alliance, which had been cobbled by the think-tanks of two sides when the first coalition was formed under the leadership of late Mufti Sayeed. Adherence to the clauses of the Alliance has been a ticklish issue with the PDP and before forming the present Government, Ms Mufti had been focusing on its implementation as an important commitment. She reiterated before the central leadership that she would like to be assured that the programmes drawn under that Agreement of Alliance would be carried forward without hassles.
Unfortunately, an ugly incident happened in the NIT Srinagar shortly after Mehbooba assumed charge of office. Tension gripped the NIT where the local police had resorted to excessive use of cane charge. CM has assured the central leadership that her Government is committed to providing security to the students and steps in that direction have already been taken. It will be reminded that nearly two thousand students from outside the State declined to take the examination and left the campus for their homes. Both State and Central Governments must handle this issue with caution and ensure that they take proper action to thwart escalation of its fallout. The CM was soft on the issue for she knows the seriousness of its consequences if mishandled.
The CM has requested the Centre for liberal funding for various developmental projects and the Prime Minister and Finance Minister both assure her of their commitment to help the state in its holistic development. However, we would like to point out that the Centre has been liberally allocating funds for various Centrally sponsored schemes in the past but a survey shows that the State is incapable of completing these projects within stipulated time. Most of the Centrally sponsored projects have suffered inordinate delay and in many cases allocated funds had lapsed owing to non-implementation of these schemes. Therefore while the CM has been assured of regular flow of funds for these schemes, it is her Government’s duty to ensure that the projects would be completed within the stipulated time.
An important matter which the CM took up with the Minister of External Affairs was about the trade across LoC at two cross border trading points of Chakan-da-Bagh in Poonch and Salamabad in Uri. She wants the quantum of trade to be increased by adding more items for trade to the list of existing items. She also took up the issue of increasing the annual quota of Hajj pilgrims from Kashmir and the Central Government agreed to consider it with sympathetic approach.
Ms. Mehbooba has demonstrated that cordial relations exist between the Centre and the state and there is perfect understanding between the two sides. She is hopeful that the Centre is seriously concerned about overall development of the State. This will augur well for the State.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel