Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Aug 3: After remaining completely out of focus ever since the creation of district on April 1, 2007, reworking boundaries of various departments’ divisions and sub-divisions in order to make them co-terminus with the district and provide justice to the fringe areas has finally received the due attention of the Reasi administration.
In this regard, the District Development Commissioner, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary has constituted various committees of officers with the direction to come up with the plans and details before August 15 so that further steps could be initiated to take this long pending issue to the logical conclusion.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that Reasi district was carved out of Udhampur and created on April 1, 2007 along with seven other districts in the State. Though boundaries of these districts were defined but no exercise was started for making departmental divisions co-terminus with the newly created districts and this led to fringe areas emerging as ‘no-administration land’.
Due to the failure of State administration to redraw the boundaries of divisions of departments particularly those dealing in essential services and subsequent slackness of the successive heads of the Reasi district to lay required focus on this vital issue, eight Panchayats of Reasi are still covered under MGNREGA from Udhampur district, sources informed.
Similarly, as many as 12 Panchayats of Reasi district are receiving power from Rajouri and for every minor problem people of these Panchayats have to approach power department’s concerned division at Rajouri. Moreover, six Panchayats of Kalakote tehsil are receiving power from Reasi district and many schools of Reasi are under Education Department’s concerned zone at Rajouri.
“Irrigation and flood control is an important department but for landslides and flooding of agricultural land in Katra, Executive Engineer, Irrigation and Flood Control based at Udhampur has to be called because the Reasi Executive Engineer has jurisdiction over Reasi and Dharmari only”, sources disclosed.
More than a dozen PHE schemes have gone defunct after creation of new district and their funding under District Plan would be possible only after reworking of the boundaries. DFO Udhampur and DFO Nowshera/Rajouri have some forest area falling in Reasi district. While DFO Nowshera receives funds under district plan from Reasi no funds are allotted to Udhampur thereby this fringe area remains deprived of development.
Public Works Department and PMGSY are other two important departments, which are facing this boundary issue as some roads of Reasi division cross through Jammu divisions.
To solve this problem, District Development Commissioner Reasi initiated a study in June 2013 and the issue was presented before the District Development Board on July 17, 2013, which directed the DDC to carry out exercise for making boundaries co-terminus with district and analyze the development funding being allotted to these departments for schemes across district boundary.
The DDB headed by Deputy Chief Minister, Tara Chand also issued directions for approaching Planning and Development Department for allocation of funds in respect of various schemes, which have been left incomplete after creation of new districts, sources said.
They said that District Officers of various departments especially under District Plan have been directed by the DDC to submit plan for reworking the boundaries of divisions/sub-divisions besides bringing on record areas of Reasi district being funded under District Plan of Udhampur, Rajouri and Jammu districts if any and vice-versa.
The DDCs of Jammu, Udhampur and Rajouri have also been approached by DDC Reasi for issuance of necessary directions to their district officers for submission of details of inter-district areas, schemes, funds provided and authentication of divisions by revenue authorities.
“The departmental meetings will begin by end of this month following which plan will be submitted to Planning and Development Department for reworking the funding pattern under District Plan as well as State Plan and CSS”, sources added.
It is pertinent to mention here that Reasi is the first among eight districts created in 2007, which has set in motion an exercise to make departmental divisions co-terminus with the district despite the fact that such problems are also being faced in seven other districts.
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