Many funny things are going on in Jammu & Kashmir enjoying special status amongst Indian states. In this part of the country no other Indian can enjoy the citizenship rights whereas any citizen of this state can fight elections, join the Government services and build houses for his living or commercial purposes anywhere in the country.
Even the children of a daughter of this state are not entitled to citizenship rights in Jammu & Kashmir in case she is married outside the state. The Indian soldiers from outside the State, who come here to fight terrorism, defend its borders and lay down their lives, cannot acquire any immovable property or service for them and their children.
The representatives of the State in the Parliament like others take part in enacting laws for the country. But these laws are not applicable to Jammu & Kashmir unless approved by the State Legislature.
The State is having a separate Constitution and its preamble unlike the Constitution of India does not include the words of ?Secularism and Socialism?. And even the Congress opposed to an amendment when recently sought by a Legislator, Shri Harsh Dev Singh, through a Private Member'sBill in the Assembly.
Out of the annual budget of the State totaling about Rs 16,000 crore, over Rs. 13,000 crore are provided by the Centre. The developmental plans are being fully funded by New Delhi. The per capita assistance to this state is over three times more than any other state of the country.
The state is having the largest number of Government employees than any other state in comparison to its population. The pay bill of the State staff and pensioners totals over Rs. 8,000 crore, whereas the revenue receipts from its internal resources are hardly Rs 3,000 crore.
The State claims that it has made big strides in the production of food grains. This production has crossed the figure of 16.30 lakh tones, which is four times more than that of what it was just 4 lakh tones in 1950. The State should have become surplus in its production as the population has increased about three times since then. But astoundingly the imports of food grains have increased more than 15 times viz from 30,000 tones in 1950 to over 7 lakh tones now. Most of these food grains are being supplied through Food Corporation of India (FCI) at highly subsidised rates.
These rations also include for 7.36 lakh families living below the poverty line (BPL). This forms 38 per cent of the total population of the State. But two years ago on August 15, the State Government received the first prize on basis of a survey conducted by India Today for achieving the success in bringing down the number by now only 4 per cent BPL.
This contradictory position still persists even after the serious aspersions were cast by the Planning Commission of India in its report of 2003 that figures about BPL being projected by the State Government are not only contradictory but are also having sharp contrast. The Commission report had observed: ?There cannot be a better example of inadequate data base then estimation of population living below poverty line in Jammu & Kashmir State. The Planning Department document has a figure of 57 per cent whereas the Government Information Department has put this figure at 3.98 per cent.?
While the state Government is getting rations under the BPL categories at the rate of Rs 2 to Rs 4 per Kg from the Centre through FCI and also the kerosine oil in large quantities, the labourers from outside the State are not entitled for such rations. They are getting the same rations at the rate of Rs. 14 to Rs 16 per kg and the kerosine Oil in the black market is more than double the rate fixed for the local people.
Another unimaginable aspect of the situation in this part of the country is that a full-fledged Custodian Department has been created for guarding the properties of those who had migrated to Pakistan at the time of communal Partition of India in 1947. Their properties are being still guarded despite they have opted for citizenship of that country. But on the contrary no such measures have been taken to guard the properties of those Kashmiri Pandits and others who were forced out from their homes and hearth in the vale of Kashmir by the fundamentalists supported by the terrorists.
Yet another example of communal approach is the denial of citizenship rights to those refugees from adjoining areas of Pakistan who had entered the State during the troubled days of 1947.
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