Major parties smell rat in J-K admin’s ‘land to landless’ plan

The initiative by the Jammu and Kashmir administration to grant ‘land to the landless’ has stirred a heated political debate within the union territory with major political parties alleging that the scheme is aimed at altering the demography of Kashmir.  A report by Riaz Wani The initiative by the Jammu and Kashmir administration to grant “land to the landless” has stirred a heated political debate within the union territory, with major political parties insisting that the administration identify the people set to receive this allocation. They have called for transparency and clarity from the administration regarding the intentions and implications of the scheme. The parties such as the PDP led by Mehbooba Mufti have expressed apprehensions that the scheme is geared to alter the demography of Kashmir as, according to the party, the number of landless in J&K is disproportionately less than the two lakh people estimated by the government. Earlier, Mehbooba said that under the government data of 2021, only 19,047 persons are landless in the union territory. “When Lt Governor Manoj Sinha says he is giving houses to two lakh people and has sanctioned the houses for 1.45 lakh already, it means if five members are in each family, the number will be 10 lakhs,” she alleged in July when the scheme was first announced by the government. “Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 is being treated as a war bounty. In the old times after the war between the two countries, the people and land of the defeated nation were treated by the conquered as a bounty. In the same manner, after the abrogation of Article 370, our land and our resources are being treated as bounty,” Mehbooba added However, the government has denied Mehbooba’s claim that the outsiders were being settled in J&K through the scheme, saying only domiciles were being given the land. But the controversy has refused to die down. Now the parties are seeking to know who these domiciles are. National Conference chief spokesperson Tanvir Sadiq said while the scheme is “not bad”, the government needs to explain more about who the beneficiaries are. “Such decisions are usually taken by an elected government,” Sadiq said. “The most important question that the people are asking is whether these beneficiaries were domiciles before August 2019 (when Article 370 was abrogated) or after that. And if it is the later, then it raises a question on the entire process.”