Opposition in the Rajya Sabha tried to make the Statistical Data Bill for J&K State a controversial matter with implicit intention of raking up parochial sensitivity of J&K. The Congress and CPI members in particular made some off-the-track and fragile assertions as if J&K was a holy cow and the Central Government wanted to desecrate it.
What the Rajya Sabha actually passed is an amendment to the Statistics Data Collection Bill passed by the Lok Sabha in April this year. The amendment has been brought to facilitate in organizing data collection under the provisions of the principal act throughout the country including Jammu and Kashmir. It has to be said that earlier to the year 2000, the Statistical Data Collection Bill was passed by the Parliament and J&K was left out of it. Centre had written to the State Government in 2009. However, in spite of that, in 2010, the State enacted its own law where certain areas they can’t enter and the Centre is also restrained from entering certain areas.
Before we proceed to examine respective stands of the Union and the State Government and the feeble arguments marshaled by the opposition, let us understand the very crux of the issue. Centre as well as the State Government plans developmental projects on the basis of a variety of data collected through formal and transparent mechanism so that in providing developmental funds to States injustice or unfair deal is not meted out to any State. This is the reason why each State has its department of planning which interacts with the Union Ministry of Planning and its affiliates. Keeping larger interests of the States and the Union in sight, the statistical data has to be as accurate as possible. If part of the data is not made available, this will result in depriving the State of its genuine share. The essential philosophy behind the concept of uniform development is that no State should lag behind the bottom line of development projected by the Union Ministry of Planning or the NITI Ayog.
In this broad spectrum of national interest, why should opposition parties bring in extraneous issues like Article 370 or “special status” or the “sensitivity of J&K” etc? Does Article 370 of special status prohibit collection of statistical data that would facilitate providing the State its due share of development? Is development of J&K subservient to Article 370? If it is, then the simple logic is that the developmental grants sanctioned for the State have also to be subservient to Article 370 , which means that J&K having special status cannot claim developmental grants on the same criterion on which other States of the Union receive it.
The State passed a law in 2010 according to which “it cannot reach some areas and even the Centre cannot reach some areas”. This concept is diametrically opposite to the concept of transparency and Right to Information. The plea that State cannot “reach some areas” because doing so will be detrimental to the people of the State wholly or partially. That means the State is deliberately hiding some crucial information from the people of the State. By denying the Union Government access to ‘unreachable areas’ the State Government is inviting the Union Government to become a party to hiding the reality from the nation. The State thus creates a question mark for its democratic and transparent credentials.
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