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DAINIK NATION BUREAU
Senior Congress leader Raman Bhalla on Wednesday took a dig at PDP-BJP coalition, saying the government has ‘failed to meet even basic minimum expectations of the people’. He said ‘administrative inertia’ has terribly affected the life of J&K.“The government is a non-starter as it has not yet moulded itself into governing mode”, Bhalla said while addressing a workers meeting in Gandhi Nagar constituency.
He said that people’s accumulated problems and woes have taken menacing proportions with administration showing least concern or seriousness towards solving them. He claimed the government is working at cross purposes and ideological trauma between the coalition partners has transformed it into a rudderless ship. The end sufferers would obviously be the poor people of this State. He demanded enhanced power procurement to meet the growing demand and cautioned the government to shun its dilly dally attitude. The utility services ought to have got priority attention but the coalition partners appear to be unconcerned. They (PDP & BJP) have forged an alliance just for lust of power and not serving the people, which has been proven in immense measure.
Bhalla recalled the dreams shown by the Coalition Government during election and said the hollowness of these is galore, be it taking the developmental initiative forward. Instead of getting engaged in enhancing quality of life of the people, the PDP and BJP have entangled themselves in numberless controversies that have shadowed the normal life. “What the State achieved in the past six years has been negated in split seconds”, he said while regretting that due to reckless policies peace and development has been made a huge causality.Responding to the issues raised by the people, Mr Bhalla assured that he will take up these at appropriate levels to ensure that needful is done in a time bound manner. “If the Government is in sleeping mode, we will make it to wake up and perform”, he said and urged the party workers to keep highlighting the problems confronted to the people.He said that as a former MLA of the constituency, he will not compromise with the public interest and make the administration to perform, be it road development, rural upliftment or implementation of various welfare schemes tailored for economic emancipation of the under-privileged segments of the society. He said the PDP and BJP were accusing NC-Congress government of performance inertia but the fact remains that it has itself miserably failed on all fronts.
Former minister described PDP-BJP government as a non-starter even after crossing the half-way mark, saying the governance is at lowest ebb and development has turned out a distant dream.He said the impact of the government is zero in rural and remote pockets with infrastructural development and utility services remaining in shambles. “The woes of the people are reflective of the governance deficit”, he said adding that the condition across the state continues to be worse. He said the PDP and BJP alliance has miserably failed on all fronts, saying every segment of society—youth, farmers, daily rated workers, weaker sections—is feeling huge sense of deprivation and denial.The former minister, however, gave credit to the ‘North Pole, South Pole”, alliance of succeeding in sowing the seeds of mistrust among different segments of society on the basis of region and religion and generating euphoria on emotive issues. He described PDP-BJP as an opportunistic alliance that can go to any extent in remaining glued to the power. He said this tie-up has proved nightmarish for the people who are suffering on every front. While the developmental initiatives taken during the tenure of Congress have been put to back burner, the government has totally failed in completing various projects and schemes of immense public importance.
Bhalla held the government squarely responsible for creating mess in just over three years of taking over the reins of administration and putting the state virtually at the brink of collapse. He said the engine of development is gaining rust and the atmosphere of peace and tranquillity has become a fact of the past. He asked the coalition partners to spell out even one promises having been realized which they made to the people. He asked the government, either to perform or perish, as public patience and resilience can erupt into a volcano if the government goes ahead with its dangerous policies of antagonizing youth, putting brakes on development, showing scant concern towards normal functioning of the utility services and vitiating the atmosphere. “This is time for the government to put its act together and get going in the governmental business rather than indulging in deviatory and diversionary tactics”, he maintained. He expressed anguish over highly dilapidated condition of road network in the entire district, scarcity of quality rations at the CAPD sale outlets and poor health services with most of the health institutions lacking medicines and minimum basic facilities.
Reacting over NGT opinion on Amarnath and Mata Vaishno Devi Yatras, Bhalla minced no words in calling it an “intrusion into the faith of the Hindus”.
He appealed to the Governor NN Vohra, who is the chairman of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, to take up the matter strongly with the NGT and get all hindrances in the pilgrims’ progress removed. The pilgrimage attracts three to four lakh people every year. They come from all parts of the country and brave forbidding Himalayan heights and vagaries of weather to climb up to the shrine. This Himalayan pilgrimage symbolises too many things at once – a journey of faith passing through forbidding mountainous heights, showcase of communal harmony, enriching the local economy and above all, renewing the consciousness of preserving the ecology and environment of the place.
Currently, with terrorist violence being a grim reality of Kashmir, preserving these symbols in practice pose a challenge that has to be surmounted in real terms 24×7.Before the NGT voiced concern over the environmental and ecological issues, it is important to know what all had been done and is being done to save the fragile environment. Helicopters do not land anywhere close to the cave area. The landing and take-off points are at Panchtarni which is six km below the shrine. The rest of the trek is to be covered by foot or on palanquins or ponies.
