‘J&K will be major contributor to India’s future economy’
Kathua: Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said here on Monday that, right from the beginning, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) shared an intertwined legacy with Jammu & Kashmir and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had reinforced it by correcting the anomalies of the past and shifting the focus to development.
He said, Jammu & Kashmir, along with Himalayan States like Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, is going to be a major contributor to India’s future economy.
Addressing the BJP Working Committee meeting here today and later speaking to media on the sidelines, Dr Jitendra Singh said, while the resources of western States have been utilized to a great extent in the past decades,it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has turned to the Himalayan resources of J&K and neighbouring regions as well as the ocean resources of the coastal States along the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. The glittering testimony of this, he said, is the “Aroma Mission” which was initiated from Jammu & Kashmir and the “Purple Revolution” which was born in J&K and has grown to be an attractive avenue for Agri-StartUps from far and wide.
Recalling the close relationship which the BJP and erstwhile Bharatiya Jana Sangh have shared with J&K, Dr Jitendra Singh said, it was in district Kathua, not very far from the venue of today’s Working Committee meeting,where the founder President of Bharatiya Jana Sangh Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee was arrested by deceit before he passed away in Srinagar over a month later under suspicious circumstances. Thus the first flame of struggle for nationalism was ignited from here which the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and later BJP carried forward for over the next half of century, he said.
Most of the of the welfare and youth-centric schemes rolled out by Prime Minister Modi, said Dr Jitendra Singh, are the ones with which the BJP Karyakartas can get associated by way of promoting them and ensuring that they reach the right kind of people for whom they have been planned. He suggested that Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha and Mahila Morcha can prepare a calendar of programmes to reach out to people with schemes like Ujjwala Yojana, Mudra Yojana, PM Awas Yojana, etc.
Describing Modi as not only the longest serving Head of the Government, first as Chief Minister and then as Prime Minister, Dr Jitendra Singh said, he is also amongst the longest serving Heads of the Government in the world as it is during Modi’s term in office we have witnessed so many Presidents getting replaced in the USA and series of Prime Ministers getting replaced in United Kingdom. The world today looks upto Modi not only with respect but also for guidance, he said.
Describing the current year of 2023 as being of special importance for India, Dr Jitendra Singh said this is the year when India hosts G20, when on India’s proposal the world is observing International Year of Millets and when India’s economy has overtaken UK and India’s StartUp ecosystem has been rated third in the world. It is also the years, he said, when Prime Minister Modi’s special priority for Jammu & Kashmir is going to witness new and hitherto unexplored areas of growth and development.