Excelsior Correspondent
RAMBAN, May 26: Ashok Kumar, former MLA Ramban and a senior Congress leader strongly urged the Government of Jammu and Kashmir to waive off the payment of three months electricity and water bills seeing that many poor migrants and daily rated workers were under huge financial crunch due to ongoing third month of prolonged lockdown amid COVID-19 pandemic.
Ashok said that many people of Jammu and Kashmir especially, the people belonging to hilly districts of Ramban, Doda and Kishtwar and the region of Pir Panchal which comprise districts of Rajouri and Ponch have become jobless under the protract lockdown.
He further said that as the number of positive cases in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir was increasing everyday and it has become imperative to extend lockdown so that proper implementation of the social distance could be maintained, adding at the same time, it was the duty of the respective Governments to protect their citizens in such a huge crisis of COVID-19 pandemic that would only be possible if there was some relaxation by Government in this regard.
“In Chenab Valley there are three mega Hyrdopower electricity projects which are functioning from the long time. The annual profit turnover of these projects is hundreds of crores. Moreover, many people had been affected during the construction of these mega projects and Government had promised to provide free electricity to the people who are inhabited in its peripheral areas or Chenab region,” Ashok maintained.
He said, on the contrary, many far flung villages were still without electricity. Kumar further said that the step of privatising electricity in Jammu and Kashmir was to check the losses and theft of electricity in its distribution, however, the production of electricity on the cost of the lives of poor people of Chenab region was painful as these projects have also damaged the ecology and forged landslides and devastated their homeland.
Ashok stressed upon the Government to provide free power to the people of Chenab Valley which comprised of districts of Ramban, Doda and Kishtwar.