Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Mar 21: A crucial expert committee report on socio –economic survey of the Pahari speaking people in Jammu and Kashmir, which may decide fate of the community’s demand of Scheduled Tribe Status, is mysteriously missing from the State Civil Secretariat.
Within a few months since its submission last year, the voluminous report of around 200 pages went missing somewhere in the office of then Chief Minister and the Minister for Social Welfare, official sources told the Excelsior.
Notwithstanding all out efforts of the officials concerned, there has been no clue regarding whereabouts of the survey report, which was prepared by an expert panel on the direction of Union Minister for Home Affairs, sources added.
It had taken around two years for the expert panel to prepare this comprehensive survey report after an extensive exercise and approximately Rs 7 lakhs were spent on honorarium and expenditures of the committee members, who claimed to have adopted scientific approach for conducting socio-economic survey of the Pahari speaking people across the State.
Mysterious disappearance of such an important and highly significant report has put a question mark on safety and secrecy of the official documents, which are property of the Government.
The expert panel for independent socio-economic survey of the Pahari Speaking People was constituted by the J&K Government in April 2013 following direction for the same by Union Home Ministry, which was approached by the J&K State for its recommendation of Scheduled Tribe status to the Pahari community in Jammu and Kashmir.
The four-member panel was headed by Peerzada Mohd Amin, Head of the Social Work Department in Kashmir University and comprised of Suresh Babu of Sociology Department in Jammu University, Ashish Saxena of Banaras Hindu University and Dr Shazia of Social Work Department in Kashmir University.
Though the panel was asked to submit its report in three months, the then Government neither signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) listing the formalities for the required survey, nor released funds for the task for about six months. The MoU was signed in October 2013, a week ahead of the Darbar move to Jammu with the result that the expert panel started its work for survey in November 2013. The panel conducted survey in Kashmir valley and Jammu region in two phases and thereafter submitted its report last year to the Secretary, Department of Social Welfare, J&K Government for forwarding the same to Union Home Ministry.
According to the sources, Secretary Social Welfare processed this report and sent it to the then Minister for Social Welfare, who purportedly moved the same to the office of then Chief Minister for the latter’s consideration. Thereafter, the file was supposed to be forwarded to the office of Chief Secretary and then General Administration Department from where it had to route back to the office of Chief Minister and Social Welfare Department for submission of the same to Union Home Ministry.
However, during this processing, the file went missing and this came to the notice of concerned officers following an RTI application seeking copy of the survey report. Despite all out efforts of the officials concerned, there has been no success to locate the file, which was last time spotted in the then Chief Minister’s office even as there is no documentary evidence of the same, said a senior officer on the condition of anonymity.
During exercise to track the report, office of Chief Secretary as well as GAD made it clear that no such file was received thus making it clear that the document went missing while processing between the offices of then Minister for Social Welfare and then CM, sources explained.
Since there has been no clue of the missing file as of now, the entire exercise for preparing the crucial survey report on the direction of Union Home Ministry has apparently gone futile due to lapses on the part of officials concerned, who are just passing buck to others for the episode.
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