Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 13: In a meeting held here today, Jammu and Kashmir Batwal Welfare Association (JKBWA) discussed several important issues relating to reservation, particularly focusing on problems of unemployment being faced by the educated Batwal youth and after detailed discussion, prepared a memorandum which was sent to the Governor for sympathetic consideration.
In the memorandum, the former MLA and Association president, Sat Paul Lakhotra, stated that during the past 68 years, the Union as well as the State Government of Jammu and Kashmir have taken care of all the communities but the poorest Bawal community has been ignored and lagging behind in all fields.
He said that the community has not been given any representation in any forum of the Government though other communities rotationally availed this opportunity. Claiming that the Batwal community has no effective say in the State only due to non-representation to them, Lakhotra alleged that all the communities have been provided land by the Government in the vicinity of Jammu for the construction of community halls but the Batwal Community has not been given even an inch of land for the purpose.
Lakhotra said that during January, 1994, the Govt of India with an object to ameliorate the living standard of the Batwal Community members launched a study to assess their socio, economic and cultural life in the J&K State and got completed it by the end of April 1994 but even after passage of twenty one years, nothing for the upliftment of the Batwal Community has been done by the Government.
The association president appealed the Governor to direct the State Government to redress genuine grievances of the Batwal community. Lakhotra also appealed the Governor to recommend to the Union Government an ‘Economic-cum-Employment Package’ for Batwal community on the basis of survey report of its ethnographic study so that it could also lead a dignified life like other evolved products of the society.
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