Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 11: Peoples Democratic Party president and former J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said that the Union Government has put resources of Jammu and Kashmir on open sale bringing the economy of the erstwhile state at the brink of collapse.
“From power projects to the sand mining sector, everything was being auctioned by the present dispensation under a planned conspiracy to smash our economy to smithereens”, Mehbooba said adding that the impact of this administrative onslaught has already shown its impact.
Unlike rest of the country, she said, Jammu and Kashmir is passing through the third consecutive year of lockdown in view of massive curbs put in place at the peak of the economic season in August 2019. “While curfews and lockdowns have caused serious dent to the economy, a series of administrative orders and laws came as a shock to those that are playing havoc across the erstwhile state”.
The PDP president was interacting with party deputations from Chenab Valley, during her ongoing tour of the region, here today.
Vice president Choudhary Abdul Hameed, general secretary Amreek Singh Reen, former legislators and PAC members Master Tasaduq Hussain, Firdous Tak and additional general secretary Abdul Rasheed Malik, State secretaries Rajinder Manhas, Ashok Jogi, Satpaul Singh Charak, Imtiyaz Shan, Sheikh Nasir Hussain, Shafiq Butt, Provincial president Women wing Surjit Kour, Vijay Dogra and several others were among those present.
Chenab Valley, she said, is facing the worst impact of the sell-out by the Union Government as even the power projects which the state was capable of undertaking itself has now been handed over to NHPC. “Rattle Power Project is an example where the state owned Power Development Corporation was self sufficient to undertake the project but it was handed over to the joint consortium that too by minimizing the share of JKPDC”, she said.
She said that power project construction companies were working like East India Company ignoring the rights of the local population. “I have been told that the locals are being denied employment in these projects despite written agreement about the share of employment”, she said adding that the local contractors were getting peanuts for the works they were executing while even the labourers were being denied benefits prescribed under the laws.
District presidents Ishtiyaq Ahmed Waza, Hafeez Wani, Shabaz Mirza, Abid Ejaz and Bhupinider Pal Singh led deputations from various districts of Chenab region to apprise the party president about the problems being faced by the people at the grassroots level.
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