J&K Govt takes initiative, Centre to give nod soon
Administration asked to identify beneficiaries
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Dec 22: Thousands of families of West Pakistani refugees, Valmikis and other migrants from Pakistan, who were deprived of the benefits of Prime Minister’s Kisan Nidhi Scheme under which a land holding farmer family is provided Rs 6,000 every year by the Centre, are set to get the benefit shortly with efforts of Jammu and Kashmir Government and likely approval from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
All these families couldn’t get benefits of Prime Minister’s Kisan Nidhi Scheme as they don’t have land rights with them as prior to abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, granting special status to erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir, they were denied State Subjects and couldn’t get the land rights.
“While the grant of land rights to West Pakistani refugees and other such families who were allotted land after their migration is under consideration and process to this effect has already been initiated, they are likely to get benefits of Prime Minister’s Kisan Nidhi Scheme even before they are granted land rights,” official sources told the Excelsior.
Under the Scheme, every land holding farmer is paid Rs 6,000 per year by the Central Government in three equal installments. The land rights of the farmers is one of the conditions for payment of amount to them.
The Prime Minister’s Kisan Nidhi Scheme was launched on 1.12.2018 and since then the farmer families among West Pakistanis, Valmikis and other refugees were denied benefits of the Scheme as they were not land holding farmers in absence of land rights of their plots.
However, the Jammu and Kashmir Government took the initiative to ensure that benefits of Prime Minister’s Kisan Nidhi Scheme reach to West Pakistanis, Valmikis and other refugees who were living here for past seven decades and were not having land rights though the process to accord them such rights is going on separately.
The Central Government is likely to approve the proposal shortly.
With this, the farmer families among West Pakistanis, Valmikis and other refugees from Pakistan will be entitled to Rs 6,000 per year in three equal installments like other farmers across the country.
The Government has also asked the administration to prepare lists of the farmer families among the West Pakistanis, Valmikis and other refugees from Pakistan who have been denied benefits of Prime Minister’s Kisan Nidhi Scheme for want of land rights.
“Once the lists are finalized, the Union Territory Government will forward them to the Central Government. Hopefully, these farmer families will start getting benefits of the Scheme shortly, ” the sources said.
Under the Prime Minister’s Kisan Nidhi Scheme, State/Union Territory Governments had to identify farmer families eligible for support. As per scheme, the Government funds are directly transferred to bank accounts of beneficiaries.
The scheme had become operations from 1.12.2018. The Prime Minister’s Kisan Nidhi is a Central scheme with 100 percent funding from the Government of India.
On their migration to Jammu and Kashmir, the PoJK refugees were allotted plots on their names as they were treated as State Subjects. However, the West Pakistani refugees were given 46,666 kanals of land on May 7, 1954 in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts but were not conferred with ownership rights as they were not treated as the State Subjects. Similarly, Valmikis and some other refugees were also denied State Subject rights by the previous Governments.
The land to West Pakistani refugees was mostly allotted in Pargwal island in Akhnoor, RS Pura and Bishnah tehsils in Jammu, parts of Samba and Hiranagar in Kathua district besides some other places.
Due to denial of rights to the West Pakistani refugees including State Subject rights, they couldn’t get the Government jobs and other facilities to which residents of Jammu and Kashmir were entitled. This discrimination was undone after the Central Government on August 5, 2019 scrapped special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated erstwhile State into two Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh.
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