Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 19: Substantiating the general observations that commissions and committees are constituted to bury the important issues and divert the attention of the people, the Group of Ministers constituted to consider the recommendations of Jammu and Kashmir State Finance Commission headed by Dr Mahmooda Rahman has not met even once ever since its constitution in the month of March 2012. Keeping in view the non-serious approach of the Government it seems that the exercise carried out for three years to prepare a road-map for addressing the issue of ‘regional discrimination’ was an exercise in futility.
The State Finance Commission was constituted in 2007 to look into regional imbalance or discrimination in the allotment of funds with any region or sub-region of the State and suggest corrective measures for equitable development. Though the Commission had to submit its report to the Government within a period of one year yet it took more than three years to accomplish the task assigned to it.
The report was finally submitted to the Government in November 2010 and after over 16 months the recommendations of the Commission received the attention of the Government in April 2012 when it engaged two experts to work out the road-map for implementation of the report.
On May 25, 2012, the Government issued an Order No.578 whereby a Group of Ministers headed by Minister for Finance and Ladakh Affairs was constituted to consider the reports of the concerned Administrative Departments on the recommendations of the J&K State Finance Commission pertaining to various departments for making recommendations to the Cabinet or to set up an expert group for in-depth examination of the proposals emanating from various Administrative Departments for making final recommendations to the Cabinet.
“The intention behind constituting the Group of Ministers was not to seriously look into the recommendations and implement the same but to bury the issue in the official files which is evident from the fact that in the Order No.578 of May 25, 2012 no time-frame was mentioned for completion of exercise either by the Administrative Departments or by the Group of Ministers”, sources regretted.
What to talk of ensuring strict compliance to the order by all the concerned Administrative Departments the Group of Ministers has not met even once during the past nine months and the non-seriousness on the part of Government has substantiated the general observations that commissions and committees are constituted only to put the burning issues in the cold storage.
In response to a question, sources said, “during the past nine months some of the departments have submitted the proposals but the same are gathering dust in the official files due to the failure of Group of Ministers to convene even one meeting”, adding “in the absence of proposals from all the departments what sort of recommendations the Group of Ministers would make to the Cabinet remains a million dollar question”.
“Given the non-serious approach of the Government towards the Finance Commission recommendations, it seems that the exercise carried out by the Commission was a futile exercise that too at the cost of tax payers’ money”, sources said.
According to the sources, the State Finance Commission has made admission, in its report, about the inter-district variation in the level of development and mentioned that developmental graph in some districts was very poor.
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