Mir Farhat
SRINAGAR, July 27: As the Assembly elections draw close and ruling parties gear up for the campaigning, the grievances of lack of basic amenities to people in the State have been mounting.
The grievance cell of the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah at Civil Secretariat which he launched in 2009 for quick redressal of the problems faced by the public in daily life has seen an increase in their number during the past many months.
With the Assembly elections just months away, the public representatives have began focusing on how to win elections and people say the grievance redressal by their representatives have taken a hit.
The ruling coalition parties, National Conference and Congress, which in view of the forthcoming elections have begun focusing on to woo the people by announcing “populist measures”, but at the same time have given a go by to the routine public affairs.
MLA from the constituencies have also directed their workers to mobilize the people for campaigning and neglected to address problems of daily life faced by public.
The CM’s grievance cell has received over 50,000 complaints in the last over five years out of which the official monitoring them have entertained only 25789 while rest were either found “un-authentic or lacked information about the complaint”.
Large percentage of these complaints was against the departments like Power Development Department (PDD), Health, Public Health Engineering (PHE), which indicates people lack basic amenities.
Ram Sevak, Additional Secretary to CM grievance cell, told Excelsior 24,522 complaints have been disposed off and 1267 are pending. He said the cell is an effective way to address the complaints of the people.
“After people lodge their complaints of lacking daily amenities, our teams monitor them for authenticity. Verified grievances are dispatched to the concerned departments. A swift and serious result is found because the departments cannot ignore them as they are from CM’s office and they have to reply to the complaint,” Sevak said.
The complaints are being received in the cell either by hand, mail or toll free telephone numbers.
Complaints of non-availability and shortage of ration like sugar, rice from Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution outlets, damaged roads, lanes, and by-lanes in rural and urban areas of the state flood the cell.
People have not stopped here. Complaints of fund embezzlement by officials in Government departments, encroachment at the tourist destinations, including Pahalgam have been shot to the CM through the cell.
The cell also receives complaints against the security personnel, private schools hiking fees, embezzlement in MGNREGA schemes etc.
Sevak said the complaints received are verified telephonically from the complainants and then forwarded to the concerned departments for their disposal as per the rules, regulations in vogue.
“The complainant is telephonically informed of the action taken by the grievance cell in respect of his complaint. These complaints are regularly followed up with the concerned Departments on weekly basis,” Sevak said, claiming 95 percent of the complaints received since 2009 have been disposed off.
In case of lack of action, repeated reminders are shot to the higher ups of departments and those officials failing to address the complaints are summoned to the Chief Secretary’s office to seek immediate redressal, he said.

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, July 27: BJP MP and prabhari J&K, Avinash Rai Khanna today said that India wants peace with its neighbours but this should not be construed as its weakness as its forces are fully prepared to deal with any misadventure at borders.
Talking to reporters at the sidelines of joining of former IGP S Satinder Singh Bijral, VHP district president Udhampur, Subash Gupta and leading industrialist Jugal Kishore at party headquarters here, this afternoon, Mr Khanna said India is not weak but fully capable and its forces are ready to retaliate any misadventure of neighbouring country with full might.
He said India wants to live in peace with neighbours but not at the cost of its security.
Reacting to a question that why Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has maintained a stoic silence on Saharanpur violence, Mr Khanna said it is not necessary that PM should make statement on every issue when other Ministers including Home Minister, Raj Nath Singh has spoken on it.
He said the Home Minister has taken up the issue with UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav asking him to ensure peace and protection of minorities in the area. He said Centre has also shown willingness to send additional force in case State needs the same.
Earlier addressing the function, he said that after achieving Mission 272+ and forming the Government at the Centre, the party has now set Mission 44+ with a motive to form first BJP Government in Jammu and Kashmir.
He said that there is enthusiasm not among the party activists but a common man too is enthusiastic as a ray of hope is seen in BJP. He said that UPA-1 and UPA-2 had only promoted dynasty rule, corruption, misgovernance and price-rise. The people wanted to get rid off such a Government and they found an alternative when BJP announced Narendra Modi as its Prime Ministerial candidate.
He said the trend will also be displayed in J&K late this year when Assembly elections are held.
Jugal Kishore Sharma, on this occasion, said that the people across the country are voluntarily embracing BJP and J&K too has not remained untouched by this change. He said this change is the result of “Narendra Modi wave”, which has invited the attention of masses and convinced them to come and join BJP.
He said that during the past few months a large number of people in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh have joined BJP and the number is going up with each passing day. He expressed hope that the new entrants will work whole heartedly to further strengthen the party with their long public standings.
Jugal Kishore Sharma and Avinash Rai Khanna also felicitated a well known K P leader Moti Koul, who had joined BJP at New Delhi two days back.
BJP general secretaries, Ashok Kaul and Bali Bhagat also spoke on the occasion.

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, July 27: A new play in Hindi based on a world known Russian story ‘Badla’ written by Anton Chekhov and directed by Neeraj Kant was presented by Natrang in its weekly series, “Sunday Theatre”, here in its Studio Theatre.
The play ‘Badla’ opens at the house of one Mr Siddiqui, who one day when incidentally arrives early from work, is stopped at the door entrance by a loyal housekeeper on the pretext that he shall not go inside as there is something gruesome happening there which he could not bear to see.
He is informed that his wife has been cheating on him and his dear friend is the culprit. Listening to this, ‘Siddiqui’ burns with anger and wants to finish everything but the old wise servant tells him to be patient and wise. But he is still determined to punish his wife and friend. He goes to an Arms and Ammunition shop to buy weapons for taking revenge. He is offered sophisticated costly guns which may make his task easy.
On having the gun in hand, he starts having an insight that what he may do with it, he had a nightmare with opens eyes and gives the weapon back to him with the excuse that it is so expensive. Then he is offered another cheap weapon which also gives him a scary dream and he realizes that he is not brave enough to take the revenge and forgiveness can be his only weapon.
The play had a lot to tell which it did directly and indirectly and the same was apparently received by the audience.
The artists who performed in the play included Rajan Thakyal, Mohd Yaseen, Mahikshit Singh, Varun Sharma, Susheel Raina, Namarta Chib, Sachin Saini, Ruqaya Khatoon Qazi, Juhi Singh and Pankaj Verma.
The lights were operated by Neeraj Kant while Varun Sharma operated the music. The show was coordinated by Sumeet Sharma whereas Sakshi Prakash did the presentations.