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Lack of transparency in process to provide houses to homeless: PDP
Soon after the press conference of Mehbooba on Wednesday evening, the Jammu and Kashmir government in a statement said the government allotting land to two lakh odd persons is factually incorrect and all statements made by her are without having any understanding of the PMAY scheme and revenue laws of the J&K which permit allotment of land to landless, for housing purposes
A day after former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti had slammed the new scheme to provide land to the homeless saying the government was treating Union territory as ‘war booty’ and distributing land to 10 lakh outsiders. The PDP said the party has taken note of the clarification issued by the government but has questions.
Soon after the press conference of Mehbooba on Wednesday evening, the Jammu and Kashmir government in a statement said the government allotting land to two lakh odd persons is factually incorrect and all statements made by her are without having any understanding of the PMAY scheme and revenue laws of the J&K which permit allotment of land to landless, for housing purposes. “So neither any change in the law has been made nor any outsider is being allotted land,” it said.
“These 2,711 cases are part of the 2018-19 PWL of houseless persons of J&K, who were debarred from having house, just because either they didn’t have land or the land they have is state/forest/any other category of land where construction is not permitted. Data being quoted by her is of housing and urban affairs, while PMAYG scheme is of the Ministry of Rural Development for rural areas of J&K,” it said.
The PDP said there is a “lingering lack of transparency in the process”. The main question of a “sharp jump in numbers of homeless people from 1,947 in 2021 to nearly two lakh households remains unaddressed,” the party said in a statement.
The PMAY has been in operation for decades in J-K under different titles and a procedure has been in place which always was monitored by the Government of India itself from the identification level to the execution level, the PDP said.
It said the assistance would be given generally to the poorest landholders and in case of people without land, there was a process in place to allot them land out of community lands such as Kahcharai, State land and Khalisa.
The PDP said the claim that “two lakh identified households still remain homeless raises doubts about the sharp increase”. “Either the exercise is flawed or the intentions are suspect,” the party added.
A spokesperson of the administration had said the “statements made by her are without having any understanding of the PMAY scheme and revenue laws of J&K which permit allotment of land to landless, for housing purposes”.
“So, neither any change in the law has been made, nor any outsider is being allotted land,” he had said.
