Lack of coordination

19/03/2020

The State Administrative Council on November 14, 2018, which met under the chairmanship of the then Governor of the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir Satya Pal Malik approved in principle a proposal submitted by the Home Department for construction of 20,000 flats to be allotted to the police personnel on a self-financing basis. It was announced at that time that 10,000 of these flats will be constructed in Kashmir Division and same number in Jammu Division at one or two locations subject to the availability of land in each place. The objective of the decision is to create affordable housing facility for various categories of police personnel along with other amenities. In this way the long pending housing need of the police personnel will be met and the Government had further mentioned in the official handout. A time-frame of two years was fixed for construction of flats with the direction to the concerned authorities to provide Government land on a nominal basis for the project.Depriving thousands of cops of the benefit of huge welfare initiative, the Government has failed to identify land for construction of residential complexes for them even over one year after the approval to the proposal by the then State Administrative Council (SAC). The dilly-dallying approach in this regard is notwithstanding the fact that deadline of two years had been fixed for raising of infrastructure.
However, despite lapse of over one year no headway has been made in translating decision of the State Administrative Council into reality and what to talk of start of construction even suitable land has not been identified at any place so far. The Government is unlikely to meet the deadline of two years for raising of the infrastructure fixed by the SAC and it seems that after clearance of proposal by the SAC no serious efforts were made either by the Home Department or by the Police Headquarters to give it practical shape otherwise one year was sufficient period for identification of land. The inordinate delay in identification of land is also the testimony of lack of coordination between Government departments as the Home Department had to formally approach the Revenue Department for allotment of land and it is a matter of serious concern that on one side huge chunk of Government land is still under encroachment and on the other side a project aimed at providing benefits to thousands of police personnel is hanging in balance for want of suitable land. Now it will be million dollars question whether the work will ever start and if yes then when.

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