‘Powerful Panchayats Govt’s commitment’
Excelsior Correspondent

KALAKOTE, (Rajouri), Apr 24: Pulverising the figments fabricated by main opposition party (PDP) regarding the empowerment of panchayats, Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah on Tuesday pooh-poohed the baseless propaganda in this regard questioning the PDP leadership about fate of urban local body institutions during their regime.
“It was your dispensation who degraded the urban local body institutions to zero degree and made a fun of their respected members”, he told the PDP leadership without naming them, adding that noise making is something else and taking action on ground is different. “People are wise enough to read between the lines. They judge us on practical work rather than slogan making”, he added.
Addressing a huge public gathering here, the Chief Minister said that powerful and effective panchayat system is his Government’s commitment.
“You will see soon a three-tier powerful panchayat system functioning and flourishing in the State”, he said asking the people not to fall prey to any propaganda. He said that under a well drafted programme, election to block panchayat bodies would be completed soon after the election to the reserved seats for panchayats in Legislative Council is held.
The Chief Minister said that the four seats in Legislative Council are reserved for panchayats, adding that the election to these is to be conducted by the Election Commission of India. He said the delay in the process of establishing block bodies was because of this reason and now decks have been cleared for holding the election of MLCs reserved for panchayat which would follow constitution of block and district panchayat councils. He said the services of 14 Government departments have already been transferred to panchayats besides providing financial support of Rs. 40 crores.
Underlining the holding of panchayat elections as historic achievement of his Government, Omar Abdullah said that had the main opposition party (PDP) conducted these elections they would have unleashed propaganda and self praising campaign for 100 years.
“The Uri-Muzaffarabad route was opened after the agreement reached between the two heads of the Countries of India and Pakistan but in this regard PDP created such an hype of self praising and blowing of own trumpet giving an impression that this party was distributing tickets for travelling in the bus service to Muzaffarabad”, he said taking a dig on the propagandist approach of PDP.
“Similarly, they talked much about healing touch but did nothing during their dispensation. It is our Government which removed bunkers, brought in rehabilitation policy, launched Awami Mulakat programmes to reach out people in all areas, introduced unemployment allowance, expanded job orbit for youth and transferred power from the Secretariat to the grass root levels by holding panchayat elections”, he said referring to a list of new initiatives and path breaking measures, the Coalition Government has taken during the last three years in the State to bring in transparency, restrict corruption and involve people in governance.
“During electioneering when we talked about providing unemployment allowance to the youth, our detectors smiled declaring it impossible. But we made it possible and presently thousands of unemployed youth are getting this benefit”, he said, adding that the recently elected Utter Pradesh Government is now introducing a similar initiative in UP taking a page from our policy programme in this regard.
Omar Abdullah said that peace and progress with thrust on creation of economic activities and job opportunities is the central idea of the NC-Congress alliance. “We are working in tandem to mitigate difficulties of people and restore peace and stability in the State”, he said, adding that the impact of balanced development unleashed in the State during the last three years is amply visible on ground. “The next three years will witness further fillip and fast tracking of development in the State. We do not say that we have done everything but it is visibly fact that our Government has reached out to all corners of the State in the process of development”, he elaborated.
On corruption, the Chief Minister said that they (PDP) only raised the slogans and did nothing practical on ground. “Instead we brought in powerful Accountability Commission, Right to Information Commission and Public Service Guarantee Act to bring in transparency and check the malpractices and corruptions at various levels”, he said and also mentioned the third party monitoring and e-tendering launching by his Government first time in the State to address the burning issue of corruption.
Omar Abdullah asked the party workers to apprise the people about the path breaking initiatives taken by the Coalition Government regarding time bound public service delivery, restricting corruption and empowering grass root level public representatives and involving them in development process and governance.
Omar Abdullah told them to make the people aware of the powers given to them under Public Service Guarantee Act (PSGA) to obtain some 50 public services from 6 departments of Power, PHE, CAPD, Housing, Transport and Revenue in a time bound manner. He said the Government functionaries have been made responsible for delivery of services in a time bound manner to the consumers.
Thanking the people for their wholehearted support to his Government, Omar Abdullah asked them to strengthen the communal harmony and brotherhood at all costs. “Some vested elements would try to wedge apart you in the name of region, religion, caste and creed, but you have to exhibit your resolve to maintain State’s rich ethos of mutual love and brotherhood prevailing between various sections of the society and between various regions”, he said.
The Chief Minister said that peace was imperative for development and every citizen of the State is equal share holder in peace and development process. He said Government is determined to carry forward development to every area, adding that peaceful atmosphere is necessary to accomplish this stupendous task.
On the development of far-flung areas like Kalakote and Nowshera, the Chief Minister said that all round and equitable development of all areas and all sections of the society is the commitment of his Government. He said special focus is being given to the development of remote and far-off backward areas.
Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Forests, Mian Altaf Ahmad and Vice Chairman Kissan Advisory Board, Rachpal Singh and Provincial president, National Conference, Rattan Lal Gupta listed the achievements registered by the Coalition Government on all fronts during the last three years.
The Chief Minister also laid the foundation of Rs. 11.72 crore Degree College complex at Nowshera.
The Degree Collage complex will come up on an area of over 102 kanals of land procured for this purpose. The college building is likely to be completed in 2014.An amount of Rs 6.57 crores has been released for the construction.
The Chief Minister met various deputations at Nowshera, Kalakote and Rajouri and also interacted with party workers at these places. The deputations were from different political parties, social organizations, traders, unions and other sections of the society. They presented their demands to the Chief Minister who gave patient hearing and said that the demands would be looked into actively for consideration.
In the afternoon, the Chief Minister reviewed the development of Rajouri District at district officers meeting in which the District Development Commissioner, Rajouri presented resume of the work done in the district on various schemes during the last year. He also gave details of current year’s development plan.
The Chief Minister directed the district administration to be at the beck and call of people and show quick response to their grievances. He said the completion of development works in a time bound manner should be made the basic ingredient in the functioning of the Government departments.

Cabinet to approve revised cost, resumption of work
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 24: After remaining in limbo for almost 16 years, International Convention Centre at Jammu is likely to see the light of the day in near future with State Cabinet is going to accord approval for resumption of work on this prestigious project. The Cabinet is meeting under the chairmanship of Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah on April 26 evening.
Authoritative sources told EXCELSIOR that decision to establish International Convention Centre at Jammu was taken in November 1996 and accordingly vide Government order dated December 3, 1996, a Committee was constituted under the chairmanship of then Principal Secretary to Chief Minister to formulate plan for establishment of convention center contiguous to State Guest House.
The execution of project was actually initiated in 1998 at an estimated cost of Rs 12.21 crore and it was to be completed in 12 months. But its fate continued to hang in balance due to one after another issues, which otherwise were either avoidable or could be easily resolved within the shortest possible time.
In 1999, some part of the proposed construction was deleted from the scope of the project and in 2003, M/s Ganga Contract and Projects Pvt Limited, New Delhi, which was allotted the electrification work, left the work halfway. However, it took four years to the then Government to terminate the contract with the company and in 2009 the execution of remaining electrification work was allotted to SICOP, sources said.
“Due to delay in the execution of the project, some of the already executed works suffered damages thereby rendering huge expenditure as infructuous”, they said, adding “during this process, the cost of the material as well as labour escalated enormously and need of changes in some specifications as well as execution of certain additional items such as road network was being felt”.
In January 2011, a comprehensive review of the project was undertaken by the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, after inspection of the site by a group of officers and it was decided to work out revised estimates/ Detailed Project Report. Accordingly, the revised estimates were worked out at Rs 24.61 crore including Rs 82 lakh for rectification of the damaged works, sources said, adding due to abandoning of the project for several years, its cost got escalated from Rs 12.21 crore to Rs 24.61 crore.
The issue again came up for discussion when Chief Minister was reviewing the progress of mega development projects few months back, sources said, adding on the instructions of Chief Minister, the matter was taken up with Planning and Finance Department and both gave concurrence.
“Now the Hospitality and Protocol Department is formally placing a proposal before the State Cabinet for administrative approval to construction of convention center at a revised cost of Rs 24.61 crore and resumption of work through the same contractors on the existing terms of the subsisting contract”, sources said, adding “after about 16 years, this prestigious project is now likely to see the light of the day”.
They informed that Hospitality and Protocol Department will prepare a video film of work executed till date in order to maintain the record of infructuous expenditure.

*Many parties keep cards close to chest
NEW DELHI, Apr 24:
The debate over Presidential candidate picked up further momentum with RJD chief Lalu Prasad pitching for Vice President Hamid Ansari while other parties kept the cards close to their chest.
In an interesting development, Gopalakrishna Gandhi met Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in Bhubhaneswar, fuelling speculation that the visit was linked to Presidential polls.
However, SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati declined to reveal their party strategy on the Presidential elections.
Ansari got support from Prasad who said his party would support the Vice President as the Presidential candidate.
“Our Vice President Hamid Ansari should be made the President. He is a good candidate for the President’s post. He should be upgraded as the President,” Prasad told reporters.
Asked about his party’s stand on former President A P J Abdul Kalam, he said, “Kalam has already been the President. Now Ansari should be made because he is an able person and his performance is also best in the Rajya Sabha.”
Presidential elections will be held in July and the UPA has to depend on other parties as it does not have required numbers to elect a President on its own strength.
Mulayam said his party has not yet decided on any name for the Presidential candidate, distancing himself from the comments made by party colleague Shahid Siddiqui who had favoured A P J Abdul Kalam but made a U-turn. “The party has not taken any decision on this,” Yadav said.
When pointed out that his party colleague Shahid Siddiqui had favoured Kalam, Yadav dismissed it, saying “it may be his personal view but the party has not decided yet.”
Mayawati said, “it is too early to comment on it. Let the name of candidate be declared first and then only we will make our stand known.”
BJP leader Rajnath Singh said, “we do not want to comment on any individual. But our view is that there should be a consenus among all political parties on the candidature of the President.”
JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav also refused to comment on any name for the Presidential candidate, saying, “let’s first hold talks on the issue.”
After Gandhi’s meeting with Patnaik, speculation was rife that he met the Chief Minister to seek support for his candidature.
The Chief Minister’s Office here described the three-hour, one-to-one luncheon meeting as a “courtesy” visit.
Gandhi’s visit was significant as it came a day after media reports on certain non-UPA and non-NDA parties planning to support Kalam for the Presidential polls.
Ansari, who could also contest the Presidential polls, had also met the Chief Minister here recently.
Patnaik is yet to make his stand known about whom his party would support for the post of the President and Vice-President. (PTI)

Accused remains at large
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 24: A youth murdered his brother and threw his body in Ragoora forests under the jurisdiction of Bagh-e-Bahu police station. The accused was absconding.
The victim has been identified as Lal Babu, 19, son of Vasudev, a resident of Bihar, presently putting up at Sector 6, Nanak Nagar. The accused has been identified as his brother Krishna Shah of the same area.
Police said both the brothers were engaged as driver with a load carrier No. 1542 JK02AU. They had gone to Udhampur yesterday carrying a machine. On return, both stopped at Ragoora forests. As Lal Babu went for toilet, his brother hit him with a stone on his head causing him serious injuries.
As Lal Babu fell down lying unconscious, Krishna tied his legs with a rope, hit him with stones and after ensuring his killing threw him into the forest area of Ragoora. The accused fled from the spot along with three-wheeler.
Some civilians spotted the dead body in the forests this morning and sounded police. Bagh-e-Bahu police station teams rushed to the spot and sent the body for post-mortem in the Government Medical College (GMC) Jammu. The body was identified by some Bihari people living in the area.
Police said the youth had been killed brutally.
Police conducted searches for the accused Krishna Shah at different places but he remained untraced. His mobile phone signals showed that he was within Jammu.
According to police, family members and friends of the two brothers have told them that two brothers were not having good terms for the past quite sometime and had developed enmity with each other. However, they continued to work together.
They had been working in Narwal Sabzi Mandi transporting vegetables in their auto for past quite sometime.
A murder case with FIR No. 20/2012 under Section 302 RPC has been registered at Bagh-e-Bahu police station for further investigations but no arrests have been made so far.
According to police, Krishna Shah appeared to be lone accused in the murder and remained at large.
Police have recovered clues from the spot where the dead body of Lal Babu was found this morning to establish the theory of his murder.
Krishna Shah, police said, had taken his brother to Udhampur yesterday under a pre-planned strategy to kill him, which was evident from the fact that he was carrying rope with him in the three-wheeler. He executed his plan getting an opportunity at Ragoora forests.

*Chairman asked to designate PIOs, Appellate Authorities
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 24: In an order of far-reaching consequences, the State Information Commission (SIC) has declared the Jammu and Kashmir Bank as a Public Authority and held it liable to provide information under the Right to Information Act, 2009.
The order has been passed by the full bench of the Commission comprising Chief Information Commissioner, G R Sufi and Information Commissioners Dr Sudesh Kumar and Nazir Ahmad while deciding bunch of complaints and appeals filed by Advocate Vilakshan Singh, RTI activist Raman Sharma and others.
After hearing arguments of Senior Advocate Zaffar Shah appearing for the Jammu and Kashmir Bank and Advocate Vilakshan Singh for the complainants and perusal of records, the State Information Commission observed, “the State Government has defacto control over the Bank”, adding “with the Government directions, the Bank has started traveling to other areas of public services and is discharging all public functions like implementation of Common Services Center (CSC) Scheme, which is an important part of National e-governance Programme (NEGP) of Government of India”.
“The Bank was entrusted with the responsibilities of implementing this scheme in the State as a specific case by Department of Information Technology on the recommendations of the State Government. The Bank is entrusted with the scheme of interest subvention of Government of India also”, the Commission said, adding “whatever schemes for last several years Government of Jammu and Kashmir have introduced for the welfare and economic betterment of its state subjects, the J&K Bank has been used as its own agency by the Government to make these schemes successful”.
“These schemes are listed in the website of the Bank itself, for instance, Roshni Finance Scheme to provide finances to occupants desirous of acquiring free hold rights of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir. Similarly, schemes of finances to the growers of the State, finances to traders, commission and forwarding agents and zafran growers are being implemented by the Government through J&K Bank”, the SIC said.
Moreover, J&K Bank is also playing an important role in implementation of seed capital fund scheme of State Government, which is aimed at to provide finance to eligible candidates sponsored by JKEDI under the Seed Capital Fund Scheme and the same is highlighted on the website of the Bank, the SIC further said.
“The J&K Bank is considered to be one of first State Banks in the country. According to the extended central laws to the State, the J&K Bank was characterized as a Government Company as per the provisions of the Indian Companies Act, 1956. In 1971 the Bank was accorded the status of Scheduled Bank and in 1976 it was declared as ‘A’ class Bank by RBI”, the SIC mentioned.
The SIC observed: “The Comptroller and Auditor General of India is exercising its jurisdiction while auditing the Bank. The State Audit Authorities are also auditing the accounts of the Bank. All these factors strengthen Government Control and influence over J&K Bank”.
Observing that for the last few years the Government has further tightened its control over the Bank, the Commission said that State Legislature has established its authority over the Bank through Committee on Public Enterprise and directed the Bank authorities to appear before it and carry out the instructions and directions for ensuring speedy recovery of loans advanced by the Bank.
“These developments are not mere formalities and indicate that Bank is a Public Authority within the definition of Section 2 of the State RTI Act, 2009”, the Commission said, adding “the CAG through its AG’s office in Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd have also assumed jurisdiction over the Bank and the Bank has acquiesced in the jurisdiction”.
“The CAG’s audit control cannot be dismissed merely by saying that it is a requirement under the Companies Act 1956. Only the Government companies are subjected to such audit and the Government companies are nothing but Public Authorities established, owned, controlled by the Government”, the SIC said, adding “the J&K Bank Ltd may not be a ‘State’ as defined under Article 12 of the Constitution of India, but the Commission is of the considered opinion that it fulfills all the limbs of Section 2 of the State RTI Act, 2009”.
“The Government is exercising its dominating influence and control through the Chairman of the Bank and through its nominee as Directors. It has been also seen that J&K Bank has always carried out guidance, instructions and wishes of the Government, whether it be granted extra ordinary overdrafts, whether it is subsidy schemes, whether it is the appointment and removal of the Chairman at the wish and pleasure of the Government”, the Commission said while drawing conclusion that Government has ‘defacto control’ over the multifarious activities of J&K Bank.
“Another limb in the definition of Public Authority given in Section 2 is the term—substantially financed by the Government. Not only has the Government substantial financial control over the Bank by having 92% shares initially, which has been later on reduced to 53% not by de-investing or withdrawing or selling the shares but by the mere fact that no subsequent subscription was made by the Government when the bank invited and floated a public issue in late 1990’s”, the SIC said.
While declaring the J&K Bank as Public Authority as defined in Section 2 of the J&K RTI Act, 2009, the Commission directed the Chairman and CEO of the Bank to designate First Appellate Authority/ Authorities, Public Information Officer/Officers and Assistant Public Information Officers as provided under Section 5 of the RTI Act to provide information to residents of the State under the Act.
The Commission directed that the applications made to the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer and other executives of J&K Bank Ltd by various complainants should be forwarded to the concerned Public Information Officers and they be directed to dispose of those applications in accordance with the provisions of Section 7 of the State Right to Information Act.
About the apprehensions of the counsel for the Bank that declaration of Public Authority would amount to opening flood gates for certain exploiters with vested interest to make frivolous applications, which may breach trust between the banker and depositors, the Commission brought the attention of Bank’s counsel towards adequate safeguards provided in the Act under Section 8 particularly Sub Section (d), (e) and (i) and Section 10 and 11 of the State RTI Act, 2009 and Commission”.
The Commission directed that its order be given effect within a period of one month from the date of its receipt.