Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh on Monday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is committed to strengthen grass-root democracy in Jammu and Kashmir.
“The consistency, conviction and commitment with which Prime Minister Narendra Modi places Jammu and Kashmir on a high priority is reflected in the fact that even during his Independence Day address from the ramparts of Red Fort, he referred to Jammu and Kashmir more than once,” Dr Singh said while speaking at a series of programmes during his visit to Kathua district.
He said that the Prime Minister not only mentioned the delimitation exercise, which is currently underway but also referred to the plans of holding election to the Legislative Assembly in the times to come, he said.
Dr Singh said, right from the first day, when he took over as Prime Minister in 2014, Narendra Modi has made it clear that he would bring all the peripheral regions of the country like Jammu and Kashmir and North East at par with the rest of the country.
“The passion and intensity with which he has worked towards this goal is borne out by the fact that in order to ensure the elections of Panchayats in Jammu and Kashmir, the Prime Minister not only demonstrated an uncompromising determination but later also made history by holding the first-ever District Development Council election in Jammu and Kashmir”, he said
“Not only Jammu and Kashmir today is on the fast track of development in the last few years, but a conscious effort has been made to ensure that there is equitable development in every region,” he added.
This, he said, was also mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Independence Day address on Sunday, while referring to Jammu and Kashmir.
While earlier, the Minister said, there often used to be complaints of discrimination in allocation of funds and projects to Jammu region, on the contrary, many of the projects which were sanctioned simultaneously for both the regions have progressed faster in Jammu region because of the peculiar circumstances in the Kashmir region.
In this respect, he referred to AIIMS in Jammu where the second batch of MBBS has started, while in Kashmir, it is yet to take off and similarly, the first phase of Ring Road is already dedicated to the public in Jammu, while in Kashmir region the Ring Road project is yet to take off.
Dr Singh referred to North India’s first-ever Biotech Industrial Park set up in Kathua, which is going to become functional in next few months while , he said, the Department of Space and ISRO have set up first-ever academic Department of Space Technology and Research at Central University, Jammu.
