Bilal Ahmad Bhat
The importance of envisaging and implementing the series of developmental projects is key to peace and prosperity of every region. Jammu and Kashmir until abrogation of article 370 had lagged the developmental touch and projects were few and far. But after the abrogation of the article 370 one is seeing record breaking developmental projects being announced to change the face of Jammu and Kashmir towards betterment. These developmental projects are giving a new direction to the process of development in Jammu and Kashmir, thus engaging scores of the youth in employment avenues.
What is promising and heartening to note is that after the Article 370’s revocation it has automatically opened the roads for development in Jammu and Kashmir, which for years witnessed zero activity in the sector due to ugly spade of violence and lack of efforts by the previous governments to improve the situation.
It is to note that facts and statistics related to projects are all the more promising.
The progress of projects being implemented in the UT of J&K under the Prime Minister’s Development Package (PMDP) -2015 has been accelerated. 53 projects pertaining to 15 Ministries are being implemented at a cost of Rs 58,477 crores in various sectors such as Roads, Power, Health, Education, Tourism, Agriculture, Skill Development etc., out of which 25 projects have been completed.
On the other hand of the spectrum, under the languishing projects programme, 1,193 projects worth Rs.1984 crores were completed, including 5 projects which were incomplete for more than 20 years, 15 projects for more than 15 years and 165 projects for more than 10 years.
2 New AIIMS, 7 New Medical Colleges, and 2 State Cancer Institute’s and 15 Nursing Colleges have been taken up.
These record breaking developmental projects are making Jammu and Kashmir an oasis of progress.
The academic and qualified voices are stating that after 2014 and especially after the abrogation of Article 370, the execution of new roads, tunnels and other basic Infrastructure has gained momentum to ensure the overall development of J&K under the dynamic leadership of Narendra Modi.
The Government has rightly built Underscoring that robust road network and modern transportation are key to economic growth, prosperity of region and transformation in every sphere of life, thus scores of road projects have been taken up.
Some months back, in his first historic visit to Jammu and Kashmir since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday announced a slew of developmental projects worth Rs 20,000 crore, and said that investment proposals by private companies worth Rs 38,000 crore would soon be coming into the region for the first time in decades.
At the event in Palli village in Jammu’s Samba district, the PM also inaugurated a 500-kilowatt solar power plant, which will make it India’s first “carbon-neutral panchayat”, PM Modi said.
It is worth noting here that in Earlier, some constraints discouraged industrialists and large organisations from investing in Jammu and Kashmir. But after the abolition of Article 370, all the obstacles that came into the path of development were removed as the government placed its focus on providing an impetus to business and the economy. The J&K Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation has been set up to provide financial support to various projects that were commissioned years ago but were yet to be completed.
To fully cement the gains of the project boom after the abrogation of the article 370 ,During the past three years, the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir has been marching on the path of development as a result of the government’s initiatives, which included various developmental schemes executed under the prime minister development package focusing on individual beneficiaries and reviving long-pending projects lying dormant for several decades by removing the obstacles, through ensuring effective and transparent administration.
Experts are delighted that among some other initiatives, the UT administration also released a real estate policy equipped with a transparent bidding process to disburse government-created “land banks” to private developers. The all-around developmental approach adopted by the J&K government has a special focus on developing a network of roads and highways only.
The project boom in Jammu and Kashmir is a matter of great delight for one and all.
