Over 600 properties of Kashmiri Pandits restored in last 5 years: Govt

Rai’s reply was to a question on number of properties restored to Kashmiri pandits in the last five years.

MoS Rai said the government had also taken several measures to rehabilitate the Kashmiri migrants back into the valley.(Representational)

Written by: Deeptiman Tiwary

3 min readNew DelhiFeb 9, 2022 05:00 PM IST First published on: Feb 9, 2022 at 04:58 PM IST

The Jammu and Kashmir administration has restored land belonging to 610 pandit migrants in the past five years, the government told Parliament on Wednesday.

“As per the information provided by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, the land of 610 applicants (migrants) has been restored in the last five years,” MoS Home Nityanand Rai said in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.

“Under the J&K Migrant Immovable Property (Preservation, Protection & Restraint on Distress Sales) Act, 1997, District Magistrates (DMs) of concerned Districts in Jammu & Kashmir are the legal custodians of the immoveable properties of Migrants. The DMs are further empowered to take all steps for the preservation and protection of such properties,” he added.

Rai’s reply was to a question on number of properties restored to Kashmiri pandits in the last five years.

Also read | J&K joins single window clearance portal, first UT to do so

“The Government of Jammu and Kashmir has launched a portal on 07.09.2021 to address the grievances of Kashmiri Migrants related to Immovable properties and community assets. An amount of Rs. 753.89 crores has been released during the last five years in this regard,” Rai said.

Rai said the government had also taken several measures to rehabilitate the Kashmiri migrants back into the valley. These, he said, included 3000 state government jobs created for the Kashmiri migrants under the Prime Minister’s Development Package-2015 (PMDP-2015) at an outlay of Rs. 1080 crores.

Also read | Check out these breathtaking images of Chenab bridge, the world’s highest railway bridge in J&K

“The Government of Jammu and Kashmir has appointed 1739 migrants and selected additional 1098 migrants under PMDP-2015,” he said.

He also informed the House that the government had sanctioned construction of 6000 transit accommodations in Kashmir Valley at an estimated cost of Rs. 920 crore in order to provide accommodation to employed Kashmiri migrants.

Also read | In J&K, why plan to merge Poonch, Rajouri with Anantnag for LS seat has triggered row

Notably, a Parliamentary standing committee in December last year expressed dissatisfaction at the pace of construction of transit accommodation for Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley noting that only 15% of the work has been completed till date.

“The Committee notes that in total, around 2200 Transit Accommodation Units will be available for Kashmir Migrants in the near future. However, it is observed that process of constructions of more than 50% is still at nascent stage. The Committee feels that the process of construction of transit accommodation units needs to be expedited and the progress should be regularly monitored,” the report of the Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs has noted asking Ministry of Home Affairs to fix a timeframe for completion.