J&K, Ladakh to get Northeast like focus: Dr Jitendra

Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh speaking in a media interview at New Delhi.
Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh speaking in a media interview at New Delhi.

Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Feb 10: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that newly created Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh will get Northeast like focus and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has himself, time and again, reiterated in recent weeks that Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh will receive same priority and impetus which was given to the eight States of North Eastern Region during the last five years, thus resulting inva revolutionary transformation over there.
In a media interview here today, Dr Jitendra Singh disclosed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to North East as many as 30 to 35 times during his first five years’ term as Prime Minister and he is now showing same personal indulgence towards Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh as well. He said, if North East today has emerged as a model of development because of the focused outreach by the Modi government, there is no reason why the same cannot be replicated in case of the new Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh where there is a relative ease of connectivity and communication.
Dr Jitendra Singh recalled that when this government came in 2014, North East made news mostly for militant encounters or protracted road blockages, but today, all that is a thing of past and we have trains running to peripheral areas where people had never seen a railway engine. This, he said, was possible because of close monitoring of the development projects and accountability of the utilization of central funds.
In case of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh also, Dr Jitendra Singh said, a professional work culture with a check on corruption and pilferage of central funds could possibly result in transformation of a much larger scale because of the relative ease of certain constraints. He expressed satisfaction that within the last few months itself, Jammu & Kashmir has achieved several significant goals like, for example, peaceful holding of local body elections to Panchayats and Block Development Councils, abolition of Inter-State Check Post, introduction of GeM Portal, initiation of digitalization in governance, etc.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, the Union government’s outreach programme involving 36 Ministers’ visit to Jammu & Kashmir recently proved quite successful and added that the same process would continue in future also, either in similar or in modified form. A similar Ministerial outreach programme was also carried out in the North East and it resulted in filling up the gaps at both physical as well as psychological level.

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