While leaving no stone unturned to ensuring a continuous process of overall development of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir as the people, generally speaking, are not concerned with any other thing than seeing how the UT marched ahead to attain the desired levels of progress and prosperity, at the same time, there was no logic in not assessing as to with the given required inputs, whether matching outputs were obtained. In that exercise , it was not aiming at, not should such be the purpose, to underrate the past performance but to see which of the areas needed focussed attention and where much could have been done . It is to make no bones about admitting that the bane of lot many problems at administrative and governance levels has been the menace of corruption . ‘Excelsior’ has been highlighting instances and voicing concern about the menace where much was required to be done in containing it, if not altogether eliminating it so fast, though that should be the avowed goal.
While recently releasing a book written by a noted diplomat, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha made certain valuable observations in that the crux was that we could have done still better during the last seven decades. It is despite the fact that on comparative basis, the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir had been getting ”more per capita budget” than other States. Aspiring for good governance and better management of things , it is imperative to make a comparative analysis, inquire into the causes of results lower than expected and initiate corrective steps to arrest the trend of ”known leakages” . If we do not do that, we would be encouraging inefficiency, non -accountability, slow pace of project works and being unconcerned about incurring losses and not stopping wastages. It is an admitted fact that Jammu and Kashmir has been receiving 10 per cent of the tax payers money for 1% of India’s population all these decades but what are the reasons of its economy still remaining fragile must be made fairly known, even if belatedly .
Has “full integration ” into the mainstream of the nation following abrogation of Article 370 really generated new hopes as for the last seven decades Jammu and Kashmir “has been kept away from prosperity and development ” as claimed by the Lieutenant Governor, despite getting ”more per capita budget than the other States” is a matter of debate and must be done only to pave a way for the future to undo the wrongs , if any. In other words, that indicates a commitment to go in for an accelerated process of development wherein basics like full connectivity of all villages with better roads and assured uninterrupted electric supply to all villages and remote areas for 20 to 22 hours in the next two to three years could be done in addition to other steps to ameliorate the lot of the underprivileged by giving a push to socio- economic development.
The fact of the matter, however, is that whatever development all the years prior to the abrogation of the Article 370 took place, which to call a spade a spade, it of course did take place, the same was not evenly dispersed and there were regional disparities in which Jammu and Ladakh regions suffered. Taking just one area – that of tourism which Jammu too is bestowed with by the nature as having numerous attractive spots and tourist destinations but due to the faulty, inequitable and even preferential tourism policy , such destinations are not explored and developed . Even most of the tourism related projects including those related to religious tourism are still incomplete. Other impediments besides massive corruption, non accountability for omissions and commissions , lethargic work culture in Government departments etc have been Pakistani sponsored terrorism and violence in Jammu and Kashmir for the last nearly four decades, combating which lot of energy and administrative priorities are diverted thus having a telling effect on overall development.
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