Penalizing power curtailment indicative of administrative breakdown: Karra

‘People must remind NC of its electoral promises’

Srinagar: Accusing the National Conference-led State Government of rendering Kashmir ‘powerless’, opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today said under the present anarchist regime the Valley is slowly being pushed back into the stone-age.

“The latest power curtailment schedule announced by the Government for Kashmir valley is indicative of the complete breakdown of the state’s administrative machinery and callousness of the political executive,” former Finance Minister and senior PDP leader Tariq Hameed Karra said in a statement.

He said it is an irony that while their political representatives are penalizing people for having voted them to power, an apolitical body like the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC) has to step in to sensitize the government on doing away with harsh power cuts imposed on the masses traumatized by the vagaries of winter.

“Where have the tall promises on Sadak, Paani, Bijli and Rozgar made by the NC leaders, for the welfare of Aam Aadmi, during elections campaign of 2008 gone,” Karra asked.
Reminding the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah of the promises made by him personally with the people during electioneering, Karra said on November 21, 2008, Omar while campaigning in his home constituency of Ganderbal had declared that if voted to power his party would work for providing relief to common man by slashing the prices of the essential commodities including electricity. “Besides addressing the issues of unemployment the NC would bring a sigh of relief to Aam Adami battered by soaring prices of commodities. The cost of LPG cylinders would be slashed by Rs 50 and the power tariff would also be lowered drastically besides ensuring uninterrupted electricity supply to the people,” Karra quoted Omar having said.

He said at a public meeting in Rajouri in 2008, Omar had announced that the party (NC) after coming to power will open fair price shops in every village of the state and 16 essential items shall also be included in the list of PDS at subsidized rates in which the prices will be 25-30 percent lower than the market.
Karra said the slogan of “Meter Hatao Aur Heater Lagao” coined by Omar Abdullah himself during 2008 electioneering in Srinagar had become very catchy and the time has come for the people to remind the NC leadership of what happened to those promises.

“Where have the one lakh jobs that were to be given in the first three months of the new government gone, what happened to the promise of one job to each family, where is the stipend for the educated unemployed youth, what happened to the commitment of bringing down educational qualification for recruitment of police constables to middle pass, and there is also no word from the government about removing electricity meters, slashing the power tariff, making electricity available round-the-clock and subsidizing the LPG and rations promised by NC during electioneering,” Karra said and added that instead what people are witnessing today is darkness all around, rampant corruption, swelling unemployment, financial mismanagement, swindling of development funds, growing poverty, unprecedented price rise, bad roads, dry taps, poor health care and crippled education system.

Karra said the state’s ruling political elite which is preoccupied with enjoying the luxuries of power while the Aam Aadmi is being subjected to all kinds of cruelties and miseries must remember that they have to go back to the same people to seek mandate again. “The people are fed up with the insensitivity of this self-centered regime and they would respond appropriately to this felling of utter neglect when the time comes,” he said. (AIPNEWS)