Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 1: Former minister and senior Congress leader, Raman Bhalla today said that there is strong resentment among people of Jammu region towards BJP which has miserably failed to address even basic issues of the people of the area.
Addressing Block meeting of Gandhi Nagar constituency at Preet Nagar Digiana, organized by Corporator Dawarka Choudhary here today, Bhalla said that no new developments but only facelifts of previous works were done in the area. He said BJP was in power at the Centre and in the erstwhile J&K State too, it was easy for the party to forward issues of common masses through their Government in the State to the Union Ministry concerned, for mitigating the sufferings of people but they took them casually.
“Even after one year since Panchayat elections, the development activities in rural areas have come to a standstill due to non-availability of funds. Panchayats are virtually defunct and rural populace is crying for development,” Bhalla said.
He demanded that all Deputy Commissioners must be directed to visit the blocks under their jurisdictions to ensure better coordination between Government departments and elected Panchayat members. He also demanded to increase honorarium of elected Panchs and Sarpanchs and clear Rs 700 crore liabilities under MGNREGA. He demanded that Government should now constitute District Development Planning Boards.
Bhalla alleged that ‘Back to Village Programme’ of the Union Government is turning merely flop show as the works projected by different Panchayats and local villagers across the Jammu and Kashmir during Ist phase of ‘Back to Village Programme’ in June this year could not be implemented till date. Big banners everywhere and advertisements in newspapers and also on electronic channels are appearing for the last few days.
He further said that one year has lapsed after completion of election of ULB’s but no visible change has been witnessed on ground. All the Councilors of JMC irrespective of political affiliations are facing problem due to shortage of funds for developmental activities.
Senior leaders Vikram Malhotra, Dwarka Choudhary, Dr Ramakant Khajuria, Vijay Singh Chib, Mandeep Singh, Bhanu Mahajan, Pritam Singh, Shobat Ali, Gourav Chopra, Kulbushan Sharma, Balwinder Singh were also present.
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