Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir is “slipping” into a “debt trap” as its liabilities have mounted over Rs 83000 crore.

Official documents lay bare that J&K’s liabilities have piled up to Rs 83573 by 2019-20- up by Rs 4513 crore from preceding financial year.

The overall debt outstanding against J&K government was Rs 79060 crore by 2018-19.

According to the documents, Rs 13487 crore liabilities were raised by J&K in 2018-19 and Rs 11999 crore in 2019-20.

The liabilities include Rs 34291 crore market borrowings, Rs 1237 crore loans from Centre, Rs 3370 crore special securities issued to the National Small Saving Fund, Rs 3574 borrowings from financial institutions/ banks, Rs 692 crore from Ways and Means Advance (WMA) from Reserve Bank of India, Rs 27162 crore from small savings, provident funds, etc., Rs 9709 crore reserve funds/deposits (Net).

This also includes Rs 3573 crore borrowings under UDAY power bonds.

In the past, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has pulled up Jammu & Kashmir Government for rising debt burden.

The debt raises questions about J&K government’s oft-repeated claims about fiscal discipline and initiating expenditure reforms.

It is worthwhile to mention that financial liabilities of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir have been apportioned between UTs of J&K and Ladakh.

On the recommendations of a high-level panel constituted by the Government of India in 2019, financial liabilities of Rs. 2504.46 crore were transferred to the UT of Ladakh—(KNO)

New Delhi:  Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh has approached Union Minister for Roads, Transport & Highways (MoRTH), Nitin Gadkari for allocation of funds to enable timely completion of the proposed Chattergala tunnel which will connect district Kathua with district Doda enroute the new Highway via Basohli-Bani through Chattergalla to touch Bhaderwah and Doda.

This is going to be a historic landmark project providing all-weather alternate road connectivity between the two distant regions and reducing the travel time from Doda to Lakhanpur to just around four hours.

Chattergala Project envisages a 6.8 Km long tunnel for which the Feasibility Survey has already been conducted by Border Roads Organisation (BRO). The tunnel is likely to take about 4 years for completion after the execution work starts and its construction cost is around Rs. 3,000 crore.

Since the BRO was facing some constraints of funds, Dr Jitendra Singh met Gadkari here and requested for financial support to BRO through Bharatmala or any other appropriate channel from the MoRTH. Gadkari’s response was positive and he issued instructions to work out how best this could be done.

Meanwhile, Jitendra impressed upon BRO Chief Lt Gen Rajeev Choudhary to expedite the Chattergala project as fast as possible.

He said Chattergala is going to be a revolutionary game changer, particularly for the districts Kathua and Doda. “This will not only generate revenue but also job generation. Moreover, the all-weather road connectivity will bring ease of business, shorten the travel time and also provide a unique opportunity for places like Bani and Bhaderwah to emerge as tourist destinations of national repute”.

Jitendra said the demand for the tunnel at Chattergalla had been pending for several years, but somehow not taken up by earlier governments because of their different priorities.

Udhampur-Kathua-Doda Lok Sabha constituency has witnessed unprecedented progress in road and bridge construction in the last over six years, the notable among them being Atal Setu at Basohli, Keediyan Gadyal and Juthana bridges in Kathua, Devika Bridge at Udhampur, new Highway from Khilani-Marmat in Doda to Sudhmahadev and Kaljugar tunnel.

The other ongoing BRO projects in the constituency include…. construction of road from Bhagwa to Lal-Darman to Masal-Dushnan in district Doda, Chkramore-Maharajpur-Rajbagh-Haria Chak road in district Kathua and upgradation of Phatala to Jakhani road in district Udhampur.

Srinagar:  Jammu and Kashmir has reported 169 major landslides in last five years, impacting life and infrastructure, government of India said on Friday.

In all 3656 major landslides have occurred across India and were collected by Geological Survey of India through onsite field investigations under the Post-Disaster Studies programme taken up annually by GSI in all the landslide prone States and UTs as per GSI’s Standard Operating Procedure, mainly in response to the requests received from the concerned State Governments.

“For all these landslides, during field validation, GSI collected vital preliminary geoparametric attributes for each of the landslides, including studying its impacts, future vulnerability, and indicating the requirements for future detailed geo-scientific investigations, if any,” said Minister for Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Earth Sciences  Dr. Harsh Vardhan in a written reply in Parliament.

To a question whether the State Governments/UTs are maintaining or having National Landslide Susceptibility Mapping (NLSM) in the respective State/UT, he said the NLSM project was launched by GSI after the 2013 Uttarakhand disaster as per the directive of the Technical Advisory committee (TAC). “With the NLSM mapping, GSI has prepared 1: 50,000 scale landslide susceptibility map of 85% of the total target area (3.63 lakh sq. km. out of 4.2 lakh sq. km.) in different landslide prone States/ UTs,” he said, adding, “The work for the remaining area in Arunachal Pradesh is under execution and will be completed by Field Station (FS) 2021-22.”

During NLSM, he said, GSI also collected historical information on 61287 number of landslides polygons using both Remote Sensing (RS) and field-based source data, out of which, 28831 landslides have already been field validated by GSI .  (GNS)

Kargil: Thousands of Muslims staged a protest in Kargil after Friday prayers against former Shia Waqf Board chief Waseem Rizvi who has filed a petition for removal of 26 verses from the Holy Quran.

The call for protest was given by Anjuman Jamiat-ul-Ulama Isna Asharia Kargil-Ladakh. The protest was also held in Drass area of Kargil where Sunni and Shia clerics led the protest against Rizvi and demanded his immediate arrest.

In Kargil, the protest was led by President Anjuman Jamiat-ul-Ulama Isna Asharia Kargil-Ladakh, Sheikh Nazir Mehdi.

Thousands of people after the culmination of Friday prayers hit to road and raised slogans against Waseem Rizvi. The protesters also burnt the photographs of Rizvi whom they called a lunatic who has lost his state of mind.

The protesters said nobody would be allowed to make such “anti-Quran” remarks.

They demand the arrest of Rizvi for claiming in his plea in the Supreme Court that the 26 verses of Quran he has sought to be removed were added in the Holy book later and they are used to promote violence.

The protesters said that Rizvi is a criminal against whom the Central Bureau of Investigation is probing his illegal sale, purchase and transfer of Waqf properties in Prayagraj and Kanpur districts. “The agency has also registered two FIRs against Wasim Rizvi.”

Meanwhile, protests were also held in Valley against Rizvi.

Large number of people participated in these protests. They demanded arrest of Rizvi without any delay.

Protest demonstrations continued on Friday across Kashmir against the blasphemous move by former chairman of Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board Waseem Rizvi.

Reports said massive protests were held in different parts of Valley in ehich thousands of people participated.

Anjuman Shari Shian president Aga Syed Hasan led a protest in Central Kashmir’s Budgam. In his address he termed Rizvi as devilish and immoral. He said that any statement or action against the dignity of the Holy Quran that hurts the feelings of the Muslims would not be tolerated.

Mirwaiz Molana Amir-ud-Din Shah led a strong and collective protest against the evil act of Wasim Rizvi in Charar-e-Sharif.

Protest demonstration against the evil act of Rizvi were also held in Pulwama, Anantnag, Kulgam, Shopian, Ganderbal, Bandipora, Baramulla, Kupwara and parts of Srinagar. (KNT)