Manmohan’s J-K plan rolls

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has backed the announcements he made during his maiden visit to Jammu and Kashmir with specific details of a R...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has backed the announcements he made during his maiden visit to Jammu and Kashmir with specific details of a Rs 24,000 crore reconstruction plan—and cash to boot. The funds have been slotted into 25 packages which were worked out after a series of meetings between the PMO, the Planning Commission and the state government.

The final details of the Jammu and Kashmir reconstruction plan (see chart) have already been conveyed to the state government with the focus clearly on the power sector. The Centre’s total share has been pegged at Rs 14,885 crore while the state will chip in Rs 2,718 crore. Some Rs 5,370 crore will come in the form of Externally Assisted Projects (EAP).

In all, an outlay of Rs 22,973 crore has been finalised for the reconstruction plan. PMO officials will be writing to the state government, asking it to get the required clearances and to operationalise its own schemes.

Story continues below this ad

When Manmohan Singh had announced the reconstruction plan in Srinagar four months back, he had said: ‘‘With these development plans, we want to change the face of Jammu and Kashmir.’’ He had added that efforts would be made to turn the state into a ‘‘power surplus’’ state in the next five years and that water supply, roads and other infrastructure projects would get the attention they deserved.

Sure enough, the power sector has been given the bulk of the allocations — amounting to Rs 15,052 crore in all. This does not include the Rs 709 crore already cleared by the Ministry of Power towards the electrification of all villages in the state.

This apart, Rs 516 crore has been set aside to develop tourism in the state. Among other things, a tourist village is being built at a cost of Rs 31 crore. Another Rs 78 crore has been set aside for upgrading the Srinagar airport and there is an allocation of Rs 142 crore for education and to augment IT in the state. Meanwhile, the state is making revisions to the Rs 552 crore project for supplying drinking water to Jammu city. For now, the project has not been put up for external funding.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More