MHA sets deadline refugees’ relief

20/11/2018

A high-level delegation of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs deputed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh few days back reviewed Prime Minister Development Package (PMDP) with top officers of concerned Departments of Jammu and Kashmir, which were executing projects under Rs 80,068 crore worth Plan approved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2015. MHA Additional Secretary Gyanesh Kumar and Manish Garg, Joint Secretary along with other officials reviewed progress of projects being executed in all three regions of the State under PMDP and called for meeting timeline as some of the projects were missing, or were scheduled to miss, the deadlines, leading to their cost escalation. The MHA has fixed November 30 deadline for disbursement of Rs 5.5 lakh worth compensation to all refugees of Pakistan occupied Jammu Kashmir (PoJK) and March 31, 2019 timeline for completing disbursement of relief to West Pakistani refugees. Package to PoJK refugees, which was long pending demand of the families who had migrated to Jammu and Kashmir in 1947 and was ignored by successive Central Governments, was part of Modi's PMDP with Rs 2000 crore reserved for it. However, relief package for West Pakistani refugees was approved by the Union Home Ministry in June this year during Rajnath Singh's visit to the State.
While majority of PoJK refugees and Chhamb migrants, who were also sanctioned relief, have been covered, the MHA has directed the authorities to ensure 100 per cent coverage by the month end and take all steps to expedite disbursement of package to West Pakistani refugees to ensure that its disbursement is also completed by March 31, 2019. It may be mentioned here that the State Government had to finalize the cases and relief amount is debited into the accounts of beneficiaries by the MHA under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme. The MHA team stressed on timely completion of ongoing projects to ensure that they don't miss the timeline, leading to cost escalation as already Rs 80,068 crore worth PMDP has crossed Rs one lakh crore due to delay in execution of some of the projects. They said the cost of major projects like under-construction and upcoming National Highways and roads, power projects etc has gone up drastically during the last two years prompting the Centre Government to revise cost of the PMDP and increase it to facilitate construction of the approved projects. Delay in start of two All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)-one each in Jammu and Kashmir, Smart Cities for Jammu and Srinagar and some other mega Projects could further increase cost of the PMDP.

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