*Rs 40 crore required to complete ongoing works
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, July 23: Several villages situated along the India-China and India-Pakistan border in Leh district, which were being discriminated on the developmental front during the past many years, have finally seen a ray of justice as the Union Ministry of Home Affairs’s intervention has led to increase in funding for these villages under Border Area Development Programme (BADP) scheme.
Sources in the Civil Secretariat told EXCELSIOR that Ministry of Home Affairs vide communication dated June 17, 2014 had brought the resentment among the border population along the Indo-China border to the notice of State Government through Chief Secretary.
Later, through another communication on the same subject, the Ministry of Home Affairs even forwarded list of priority villages of border blocks of Nyoma and Durbuk along the Indo-China border with the direction that State Government should accord highest priority to these villages while formulating the Plan of BADP for the financial year 2014-15, sources informed.
“The resentment among the border population was justified as during the past several years BADP funds, instead of being utilized in the border villages, were being utilized in all 113 villages of the Leh district under the political pressure”, sources said, adding “due to practice of providing undue benefits to the non-border villages, meagre allocations were being made to the border villages”.
When the Leh district administration studied the funding pattern of the ongoing BADP Plan in the light of MHA’s communiques, it came to the fore that numerous schemes have been taken up at the estimated cost of more than Rs 80 crore against an annual BADP Plan of Rs 13 crore. “At this rate, coupled with the cost escalations, an average small scheme takes 4-5 years whereas a bigger scheme costing more than Rs 90 lakh could take 10 years for completion”, sources said.
“Due to this the contractors have left many works incomplete and are not willing to work unless liabilities are cleared”, sources further said while disclosing that this has created a vicious circle which is leading to resentment among the people particularly the inhabitants of border areas.
Following the MHA intervention, the Leh district administration has initiated some measures towards providing justice to the border villagers.
For the border block of Khaltsi where allocation during 2013-14 financial year was Rs 17.96 lakh, an amount of Rs 48 lakh has been earmarked during the current year’s BADP Plan thereby registering an increase of 36%.
Similarly, an amount of Rs 206.68 lakh has been earmarked for the Nubra block this year as against allocation of Rs 90 lakh during the previous year.
As far as Nyoma and Durbuk blocks are concerned for which specific mention was made by MHA in its communiques to J&K Government, an increase of 15% and 28.6% respectively has been made over last year’s allocation.
In 2013-14, an allocation of Rs 244.35 lakh was made for the Nyoma block and Rs 137.76 lakh for Durbuk block. However, in current year’s BADP Plan, Rs 327.57 lakh has been earmarked for Nyoma and Rs 247.12 lakh for Durbuk block. In this way, the funding in the 22 border villages/panchayats has been significantly increased out of the existing plan by reducing the funding to the non-border villages, which are, however, figuring as ongoing schemes, sources said.
Keeping in view the additional burden on the BADP Plan of the district due to the practice of taking up new schemes, the Leh district administration, according to the sources, has not included any new scheme in the current year’s plan.
Stating that demands of the border areas are required to be addressed on top priority because of the fast Chinese development across the border, sources said, “MHA is being requested to sanction one time grant of Rs 40 crore for completion of ongoing works in 22 border villages of Leh”.
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