High-level Central panel calls off its J&K visit

A senior Government official indicated that the visit would not be undertaken before the “political situation” in the state improved. He was referring to the government-opposition standoff over the custodial death of a National Conference worker,Syed Mohd Yusuf,whom Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had summoned to his residence.

The last time such a high-profile team s visited J&K was in October 2009.

Seth’s team,which was scheduled to visit the state,had secretaries of 12 ministries,including Home Secretary R K Singh and Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma.

The team was to take stock of the security and development-related work in the state.

It had been planned on the directions of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after he was told by the three J&K interlocutors that there was no visible impact of the Government’s flagship schemes in the state.

The interlocutors—journalist Dileep Padgaonkar,academician Radha Kumar and former Central Information Commissioner M M Ansari—had told the Prime Minister about the poor implementation of the Centrally-funded schemes such as NREGA and National Rural Health Mission.

The team of officials was also scheduled to review the progress on Rs 2,000-crore job creation plan rolled out by Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council headed by Dr C Rangarajan in March.