Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir administration, led by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti have come to a discord over the allotment of land to two lakh "homeless" families in the region amid an uncertainty over the number of homeless families in J&K.
What happened?
On July 3, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha addressed a press conference at Rajbhawan in Srinagar saying: "the rural development department has identified nearly 2 lakh homeless families, plots to 2,711 landless families have already been allotted and rest will be catered soon.”
As LG made the announcement, Mehbooba Mufti quoted figures of the central government presented before the Indian Parliament in 2021 which says that there are only 19,000 homeless families in J&K.
Mehbooba asked LG, Who are these two lakh families?
“Even if there are only five persons per family, it accounts for a population of 10 lakh," she added.
A day later, the Lieutenant Governor’s (L-G) administration issued a clarification saying that no outsider is being given land under the garb of land to the landless scheme and added several genres for the “homeless” in the statement (criteria of houseless; living in zero, one or two-room kachha houses; houseless persons who don’t have land or clear title of land or have that category of land where construction is not permitted, couldn’t be sanctioned house, even if they are part of this permanent waiting list). However, the PDP said the questions raised “remain unanswered” in the official clarification.
“The statement of Ms. Mehbooba Mufti that the government is 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,” an official clarification by LG administration said.
“PMAY-Grameen Phase -1 was started in 2016 by the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, for “Housing for all by 2022”. 2,57,349 houseless cases were identified in J&K in the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) data 2011. The official said the survey was based on clear guidelines, which include the criteria of houseless; living in zero, one or two-room kachha houses; houseless persons who don’t have land or clear title of land or have that category of land where construction is not permitted, couldn’t be sanctioned house, even if they are part of this permanent waiting list,” reads the Official statement.
“Based on the field level survey, out of 199550, 2711 cases were identified who don’t have clear title of land and fall in following categories of those people residing on State land; people residing on forest land; people residing in Rakhs and farms land, where construction is not permitted; people sitting on Custodian land; and land allotted to displaced people by Government near Dachigam park for agriculture purpose, where construction is not permitted. The government has taken a policy decision to allot 5 marlas of land to these 2711 cases so that they can get houses and was indicative of the government’s commitment to the poor,” it reads.
Meanwhile, the PDP, in response to the official clarification, said the main question of a sharp jump in the numbers of “homeless families” from 1947 in 2021 to nearly two lakh ‘households’ remains unaddressed.
The PDP also sought a detailed clarification on the process of identification of beneficiaries.
“The PMAY has been in operation for decades in the state under different titles and a procedure has been in place which always was monitored by the Government of India itself from identification to the execution levels. The assistance would be given generally to poorest landholders and in case of people without land there was a process in place to allot them land out of the community lands like Kahcharai, state land, Khalisa etc,” 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,” it said.
The PDP said the latest announcement made at the highest level comes close on the heels of the allotment of tenements to non-local workers in Jammu.
“Does any state in the country reciprocate this for thousands of workers, hawkers, small vendors who move to plains during winters?” the PDP said.
Apart from the central govt’s figure placed before the parliament in 2021, the figures of the 2011 census and those of 2001 shows the number of homeless people in Jammu and Kashmir was 2,130 in the 2001 census and 3,076 in 2011.