With an avowed aim of evenly developing all districts of Jammu and Kashmir with focus on all factors that count in importance, the decision of the UT Government in evolving a multi pronged strategy to achieve the desired results shall be received by all as a very important step taken in the desired right direction. Staggering of resolution of those issues which cannot be addressed during a single year could now be taken up for complete addressing in a period ranging from 2 to 3 or even in certain cases up to 5 years . A sort of an administrative autonomy granted to each district in matters of having separate Employment, Housing, Tourism, Industrial, Health, Sports and Road Connectivity Plans for the first time was going to yield quite encouraging results besides the activities related thereto being district centric. In this context, the role expected to be played by democratically newly elected District Development Councils which constitutionally will be acting as the District Planning Committees, is phenomenal. The role of the schemes related to functions transferred as per 73rd and 74th Amendments in the entire gamut of District Development Plans was going to occupy the centre stage in that being part of each and every district plan. In other words, the actual functions of the DDCs were going to be vividly manifest as every district of Jammu and Kashmir had to formulate a district development plan after identifying key issues in relations to the resources available as also the functions related to which issues concerned the common people the most. The need had always been felt that instead of ad-hoc measures or short term overall gains expected from such plans, holistic approach with stress on needs and priorities of individual district had to be adopted. To address this inherent lacunae in formulation of such plans so far, multi pronged strategy has now been chalked out receiving the approval of the Lieutenant Governor. With this approach which could be termed as realistic, no district would now complain of neglect or some other district preferred over the other, in matters of need based development. Uniformity, parity and district centric approach coupled with democratic decentralization of funds and functionaries would form the basis of the multi pronged strategy. Panchayats have various issues individually as also between other Panchayats which are now poised to be addressed adequately as District Development Plans will comprise plans at Block levels and planning at Block levels is going to address the issues of Panchayats. However, it must be ensured that maximum use of available resources must be made especially during these days of strained economy on account of the long shadows cast by the effects of COVID Pandemic on mobilising of necessary resources. The acid test of the efficiency of planning shall lay in how under the available resources, maximum social benefits reached the targeted groups and areas which calls for efficiently managed resources utilization. It is quite encouraging to promote District Employment Plans and to link it with the performance indicator of the District Authorities so far as providing minimum 100 days of employment to job card holders is concerned. Likewise, District Health Plans, District Sports Plans, District Connectivity Plans and the like are supposed to get focussed attention. More awareness about these steps need to be made for information of the public and how Government laid stress on important issues concerning the districts. Self employment schemes must be those ones which are not stereo type which ultimately succumb to market pressures. Since employment and tourism like priorities are being under the new strategy looked into by individual districts, maximum human resources must be roped in to create district ”specialities”. In other words, a particular district could become a hub of an exclusive economic and commercial activity, like tourism centric, handicrafts and local arts exporting capabilities since each district is bestowed with peculiar fields to specialise in, hence more of development ensured therefrom. Multi -pronged strategies should not only look fair in drafting and chalking out but on ground, the same should be found working too and yielding results.
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