Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, June 22: Jammu & Kashmir National Conference North Zone president and Member Parliament, for Baramulla Lok Sabha Constituency, Mohammad Akbar Lone today expressed discontent over the Government’s move to station various pivotal departments in Jammu Secretariat saying the irrational decision speaks volumes about the revulsion present ruling dispensation nurtures for the rights of people of Kashmir.
In a in a hard hitting statement issued here, today he said that previously the Government had halted the Annual Darbar Move citing COVID-19 earlier this year, and that since then successive orders emanating from Government have only added to the confusion on ground, perplexing administration and festering unaccountability within administration. “The traditional Darbar Move is less climatology driven and more symbolic that affords a sense of empowerment to the people in the two diverse regions on either sides of Pir Panjal range to strike unity and amity between different ethnic groups living across the length and breadth of J&K. Regrettably everything which symbolized Kashmir’s due say in the administration has been obliterated and done away with. The incumbent administration has made Jammu the salient space of public authority and Governmental action. Stationing all important departments in Jammu has put an end to the participative feeling of Kashmiri people. The step has added an insult to injury, as if stripping Kashmir of its special Constitutional character wasn’t enough,” Lone added.
“The successive democratic Governments of the erstwhile State too held that shifting the highest seat of power to and fro from Jammu to Srinagar will give impetus to development in the two diverse and geographically disconnected regions of J&K. This imprudent diktat ordered many departments to remain stationed at Jammu sans logic. What is more upsetting is that Departments like Health and disaster management have been made to stay put at Jammu secretariat, given the fact that the present precarious times required these departments to shift to Kashmir in view of the spike in COVID-19 related cases. The Government has chosen not to do it, for the reason better known to it. It is not just an affront against the people of Kashmir and their rights and privileges, it also gives a lie to the claims of the Government on ensuring parity between the two regions. Extending the working of Darbar at Jammu had already affected the development prospects in Kashmir, the new diktat has compounded the problems of people multifariously. There is utter confusion on ground about the working of Secretariat, people are confused as to where they should go to get their problems addressed,” he said.
Follow our WhatsApp channel