History of countries and towns is made or unmade by strange coincidence of events. Great conquerors and warlords have, during the course of their adventures annihilated towns and cities but at times they have also raised new habitats which turned into fabulous cities.
Three or four decades ago, Katra was just a small insignificant roadside habitat with a couple of tea shops or a small grocery shop where passengers travelling between Jammu and Udhampur halted for few minutes to sip a cup of tea before resuming their journey. As destiny would have it, this insignificant habitat shot into prominence just because it was the base camp for hike to the holy cave of Mata Vaishno Devi. Perhaps it was the divine grace which the holy deity conferred upon this insignificant habitat and helped it to become a brisk business centre with huge number of pilgrims descending on it and making it the base camp. As the influx of pilgrims to the holy cave began to increase rapidly, alert businessmen got busy with raising buildings, shops, groceries, restaurants, old curio shops, pharmacies etc. all found the opportunity of making livelihood from the pilgrim tourists whose number has increased to thousands each day. Last year the number of pilgrims to the holy shrine was computed to one crore plus.
The destiny of Katra changed in a massive way so much so that last year the Railways Minister had the privilege of inaugurating the Katra railway station and flagging off the first rail service from different parts of the country to Katra. Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, functioning under the capable eldership of the Governor of the State, who is also the Chairman of the Shrine Board, contributed massively to the economic, social, cultural and environmental development of Katra and its peripheries. Katra began to expand. Cost of land, suddenly shot to incredible level, people with money and motivated by business interests began to buy land wherever available and at whatever price because they knew that a great future awaited the town in the background of its fame as the second largest pilgrimage site in the country and also because of Katra becoming the terminus of Northern Railways. The town is enjoying all characteristics that would make it the hub of connectivity between the regions of Ladakh-Kashmir and Jammu and then to the rest of the country. The Shrine Board has immensely contributed to the development of the town: a university, a super speciality hospital with a Medical College, a Nursing College etc. are among major contributions of the Shrine Board. Additionally, the Shrine Board has also contributed to the ecology and environmental purity of the town and its suburbs.
With an eye to the vast scope for the town of Katra to develop into a bustling city, the Government decided to create Katra Development Authority under the constitutional provisions available to the State. The purpose was to control, direct and monitor the growth and development of this township under a plan and not allow its haphazard development which would make it look more shabby than attractive. The exercise of finalizing new Master Plan-2031 was approved by the State Administrative Council headed by Governor N N Vohra on March 28, 2016 and the same was notified on April 1, 2016 for strict implementation by the Katra Development Authority. But sadly, after the PDP-BJP Coalition Government took the reins of Government, the project of implementing the Katra Master Plan was pushed to the back burner. The Coalition Government showed no interest in carrying forward the project since it made no effort whatsoever to provide requisite manpower to the KDA. At present three officers are manning the Authority. By no stretch of imagination is it realistic to expect three functionaries to handle the development of a vast project that is spread over nearly 80 square kilometres. Even the people in the town and its peripheries are disgruntled with the authorities for their apathy towards the development of this town. We hope the Government understands the aspirations of the people and also appreciates the efforts of the Shrine Board and as such it should order concerned authorities to provide the KDA the necessary manpower and infrastructure so that development of the town is not suspended or delayed.
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