Regional bias

Why have successive Governments in the State religiously pursued a policy that smacks of regionalism? We have noted that the State Government, irrespective of whichever political party is in the seat of power, has resorted to meting out step-motherly treatment to the regions of Ladakh and Jammu. Whenever the complaint of discrimination and regional bias is lodged with the authorities, the State Government takes shelter behind the patent ploy of deniability.  At no time has the Government come out with convincing statement which would dispel grievance or criticism. Naturally, expression of unconvincing deniability does not remove the doubt rather adds something more to it. The question is this; is regional bias the fundamental philosophy of the ruling party or is it the machination of the bureaucracy which is overwhelmingly from Kashmir valley? In our opinion, it is both, the policy of political parties and the machinations of bureaucracy.
The long history of bias against Jammu region has to be traced back to the days when popular Government was established in J&K State. Discrimination has mostly affected the people of the hilly regions in Jammu province like Doda, Kishtwar, Mandi, Gagren, Savjian, Surankot, Mendher, Rajouri and border line population of Poonch and Rajouri districts. We have one blatant example of regional bias to note.
CAPD is an important department which has a network of distribution; tehsil is an important unit for coordinating the distribution system. The strength of CPAD employees in Kashmir province is 4900 whereas the strength in Jammu just 980. Assuming that the population of Kashmir Province is 70 lacs and that of Jammu 50 lacs and taking into account the ratio of employees in CAPD on the figures of Kashmir Province, the strength of Jammu CAPD should have been 3500 as against 980. Isn’t this a blatant example of bias against Jammu region?
Two years ago the Government carved 77 new Tehsils in Jammu province and 56 in Kashmir. Till date staff for the new tehsils has not been provided. Consequently, CPAD, too, has not set up its branches in thee tehsils. What about supply of food grains to the people in these new tehsils? We have seen that during past two years there have been protests and demonstrations in large rural areas in Jammu province against shortage or no supply of food grains.  New TSOs and other staff are not appointed till date. New units were allowed to function through the old extant system within the department only to make corruption and bribery more rampant. The discrimination lies in the fact that while only 56 tehsils have been affected in Kashmir Province with a population over 70 lacs, 77 tehsils in Jammu are affected with a population of only 50 lacs. How long this bias will be kept hidden from the masses of people. It is a different matter that no infrastructure and adequate staff has been provided to the newly created tehsils. Jammu CPAD has a shortage of staff to the tune of 40 to 45 per cent whereas in Kashmir there is excess of staff in many branches of CPAD. Why is not the excess strength deputed to the understaffed branches in Jammu Province especially in far flung rural areas till existing vacancies are filled by recruiting local candidates.
Shortage of supervisory staff has given rise to pilferage. The Coalition Government had announced with much fanfare that GPS system would be installed in trucks carrying ration and many other reformatory measures were also suggested to overcome corruption in CPAS. None of these measures have been taken and corruption goes on as usual. Responsible functionaries of CPAD in both provinces are tongue-tied. They have the patent rhetoric that things are being taken care of and loopholes are plugged.
This is the ground situation of CPAD in Jammu. It is now an open secret that CPAD is at the top of corruption list in the State Departments and nothing is virtually done to ameliorate the situation. We are not laying more stress on the subject of eradication of corruption or streamlining the administration. That is an important subject to be dealt with separately. We are focusing on bias against Jammu region. We do not have the statistics of Ladakh region ready at hand otherwise we would have included Ladakh also in our analysis. Discrimination against any region and in whatever form has to be done away with. The days of darkness are gone and we are living in an atmosphere of transparency and openness. Jammu has had enough of discrimination.

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