JKSAC’s plea to extend relief package scheme

JKSAC members during meeting at Ramgarh in Samba on Friday.
JKSAC members during meeting at Ramgarh in Samba on Friday.

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 16: The Jammu Kashmir Sharnathi Action Committee (JKSAC) today appealed to the Lt Governor Manoj Sinha and the Central BJP leaders to extend Relief Package Scheme of Rs 5.50 lakhs in favour of Displaced Persons.
In a meeting of the JKSAC held at Ramgarh in Samba today the participants made a humble appeal to Manoj K. Sinha and other high profile leaders of BJP to impress upon the Ministry of Home Affairs to extend the relief package scheme of Rs 5.50 lakhs each DP family for another one year as the same has been closed by Ministry of Home Affairs vide order No. 15030/99/2020 dated Feb 22, 2022. The members also appealed to GOI to implement the JPC Report No 183, the only road-map to resolve the decades old settlement issues of PoK DPs..
While addressing the members Gurdev Singh, president expressed his serious concern regarding the closure of relief scheme and termed it as arbitrary and illogical as the order for closure of the scheme issued without ascertaining the factual position and without seeking the feedback from the concerned sub-ordinate office of UT of J&K. He said that sudden and untimely closure of the relief scheme has deprived thousands of Jammu based bonafide families of 1947, 1965 and 1971 of the benefits of the relief scheme.
Singh said order issued by MHA is absolutely contrary to couple of earlier statements made by Home Minister, Amit Shah, wherein he assured time and again that benefits of ex-gratia relief scheme of Rs 5.5 lakhs would be provided to all the bonafide DPs families settled in Jammu and even including those who are settled in other parts of the country.
He appealed to Lt. Governor to take up the issue of the extension of scheme for another year on priority with Ministry of Home Affairs to provide benefits of the scheme to the remaining thousands of families. He also appealed to PM and Home Minister to implement the Joint Parliamentary Committee report No. 183 to resolve the DPs long pending settlement issues.
Meanwhile, a seven member committee for district Samba headed by Mittar Pal Singh (president) and Bharpur Singh (gen secy) was also constituted.
The other members of the committee are Bhagwan Singh, Subash Chander, Manmohan Singh, Pishori Lal and Rattan Lal.