Not even one Khilafwarzi Officer deputed till date
*No meeting of KDA held since March last year
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 18: In an unrealistic approach, the Government of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has assigned the task of enforcement of Katra Master Plan over 79 square kilometers area to only five officers and that too without the deployment of any Khilafwarzi Officer till date.
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Further, the repeated requests from the Katra Development Authority (KDA) for posting of sufficient manpower are not being taken seriously by the politicians as well as concerned officers of the Housing and Urban Development Department.
Several years back mid-term revision of Master Plan for Katra town, the base camp for the pilgrimage to cave shrine of Shri Mata Vaishnodevi, was carried out keeping in view huge commercial expansion and its Railway connectivity. With this, the jurisdiction of Katra Development Authority was increased from 11.06 square kilometers to 79.56 square kilometers.
Since then the Master Plan is applicable to a total of 31 villages including the main town. However, despite wide-spread increase in area of responsibility of the Katra Development Authority, sufficient manpower has not been placed at its disposal as a result of which violations of the Master Plan either completely gets unchecked or checked at the belated stage, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
At present, the sanctioned manpower strength of Katra Development Authority is merely 13 and against this there are only five officials in the Authority including the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), they informed, adding “till date no serious efforts have been made by the Housing and Urban Development Department to create more posts for the Authority and provide sufficient manpower for effective implementation of Master Plan”.
“What to talk of providing other staff even Khilafwarzi Wing has not been created till date, which otherwise is imperative to check violations of the Master Plan well in time and take action against the violators”, they further said, adding “till date not even one Khilafwarzi Officer has been deployed in the Katra Development Authority, which although vested with sufficient powers to ensure planned development in 31 villages as well as holy town but finding it difficult to exercise the same for want of manpower”.
From time to time several communications were addressed to the Housing and Urban Development Department requesting for deployment of sufficient manpower to the Katra Development Authority but no seriousness was shown to overcome the problem, sources further said, adding even the MLA concerned was apprised of the situation and his intervention was sought so as to make the Katra Development Authority functional in the real sense but he too failed to understand the problem.
“Moreover, the Board of Directors of the Katra Development Authority comprising of Administrative Secretaries of almost all the key departments and local MLA is not meeting at regular intervals and last meeting was held in the month of March 2024”, sources said, adding “the meetings of the Board-at least twice in a year– are imperative to assess the progress made in the enforcement of Master Plan and difficulties being faced by the Katra Development Authority”.
They informed that there was hardly any meeting of the Board of Directors where the issue of manpower shortage was not raised but despite assurance no positive development has taken place till date. “If the Government is really serious in ensuring planned development of holy town and all those villages where Master Plan is applicable it should act without further loss of time and provide sufficient manpower to the Katra Development Authority”, sources stressed.
It is pertinent to mention here that at the time of revision of the Master Plan, it was stressed that Katra Development Authority should have three sub-departments —Acquisition and Disposal of Land and Other Property; Granting Building Permission and Exercise the Development Control and Infrastructure Services and Amenities Provision for the overall implementation of the functions of the Notified Area.
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