Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 2: J&K BJP General Secretary and former Minister Sunil Sharma said that revival of Village Defence Committees (VDCs), renaming them as Village Defence Groups (VDGs) and considering other genuine demands, including financial empowerment, will boost security grid in Jammu & Kashmir.
Addressing media persons at party headquarter, here today, Sunil Sharma recalled that there was a time when terrorism was at its peak and innocent people were being killed mercilessly. The people from hilly and far flung areas were migrating to safer places due to threats to their lives when the BJP leaders, particularly Atal Behari Vajpayee and L K Advani launched Doda Bachao Andolan and raised voice for the constitution of VDCs in 90s, he said and added that their struggle culminated into coming up of VDCs in all the 10 Districts of Jammu Province with Arms to counter terrorism.
The BJP leader said that despite the important role played by VDCs, their salary distribution system was not streamlined as the salary from SPOs were distributed among all the members. He further said that 2 years back, SPOs got the order from Court as a result of which they were not bound to distribute salary and so the remaining members of VDCs were left without any salary. “Till now many VDCs have been non functional or disbanded. Many VDC members have submitted their resignations and deposited weapons. They did so to be enrolled for availing the benefits under BPL category,” he explained.
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Sunil Sharma informed that J&K BJP President Ravinder Raina had been consistently taking up the cause of VDCs at different levels and he himself was regularly monitoring the whole issue. He said that now the Union Home Ministry has finally revived the VDCs into VDGs, which will go a long way in meeting the genuine demands of their members, who will now be enrolled as Village Defence Guards under new policy, thus entitled for One Rank and equal salary to be directly transferred into their accounts. He also stressed on the need to equip them with modern weapons for giving a befitting reply to any terrorist attack in future.
Expressing gratitude to PM Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, LG Manoj Sinha and DGP Dilbagh Singh for their role in helping the VDCs to be revived, Sunil Sharma hoped that the other pending issues will also be resolved at the earliest.
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