Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
06 Greater KashmirSrinagar | February 25, 2015, Wednesday
Banks have a roleThe banks would also have to adopt a liberal approach in the restructuring of various types of credit facilities.
The continued low CD ratio in Jammu and Kashmir is a cause of serious concern. At the 96th SLBC meet it was revealed that the credit-deposit ratio of all banks
operating in the state at the end of Q3 of FY 2014-15 stood at 46.07 per cent. Although it represents a 5.27 per cent increase over 40.80 per cent CDR recorded during the corresponding period of 2013-14, it is still far below the RBI set target for the banks in this behalf. Secondly, the total credit extended during the three quarters (nine months) of 2014-15 represents only 57 per cent achievement in financial terms. Under priority sector the achievement is even poorer at just 49 per cent. The volume of the credit extended under government sponsored schemes is not encouraging. The banks have disbursed only about Rs 132 crore to 5,829 beneficiaries under five major government sponsored schemes namely NRLM, PMEGP, NULM, JKSES and SC/ST/OBC. The figures dished out at the SLBC meet amply demonstrate that save Jammu and Kashmir Bank, all other banks operating in the state have been quite slow in advancing loans in the state. Of the total Rs 11,300 crore credit extended in the state in three quarters of the current financial year, Jammu and Kashmir Bank alone accounts for Rs 8,018 crore. This shows that 45 banks in the state have given just Rs 3,282 crore credit in the state suggesting that financial inclusion is not a priority for these banks in the state. The floods that hit Kashmir in September have brought about a number of challenges on the economic front underlining an important role for the banks to help rebuild state economy. For the inclusive growth in the state, the banks have to reach to the unbanked areas and bring into the banking fold those who are still financially excluded. Besides, the banks would also have to adopt a liberal approach in the restructuring of various types of credit facilities. The restructuring of advances to the borrowers who have suffered from the natural calamity will have to be done on priority. All the banks operating in the state need to reorient their credit policies towards the state so that the deposits they mobilize in Jammu and Kashmir are utilized for the development and economic growth of this state.
Greater Kashmir Editorial
Documenting Floods Kashmir: Into the Murky Waters captures the tragedy that befell us all
A few days back I had an opportunity to watch a documentary on Septem-
ber 2014 floods in Kashmir. It was shown in the office chambers of Associated Media (AM) at Resi-dency Road, Srinagar.
The documentary was titled, “ K a s h m i r : Into the Murky Waters.” It is the result of the combined efforts of Tarique Bhat, Wajahat Kath-wari, and others associated with AM.
It must have been a perilous job for all of them to capture angry tides of the flood waters, which are shown to destroy whatever was coming in their way. True, the furious tides left behind a trail of death and destruction. The devastat-ing scenes send shivers down the spine. While watching the docu-mentary my eyes became wet to see the helplessness of those who were caught in the deluge. It was really a situation of helplessness. My head bowed in shame to see
how we have made encroach-ments on wetlands, raised unau-thorized colonies, and vandalized nature.
The documentary reveals how the concerned authorities had not taken proper preventive steps during pre-flood period and how the government machinery was conspicuous by its absence for five long days. It becomes evident as to how the decisions taken to prevent damage were delayed and whatever little was done lacked sense and wisdom. All these fac-tors got added and conspired to turn a natural phenomenon into a catastrophe.
The docu-mentary makes it clear that this great trag-edy is a story of human failure. If people do not u n d e r s t a n d their follies and realize their responsibili -
ties, and if the government does not wake up and embark on pre-ventive strategies, the floods may hit us again. That will be a much harsher tragedy.
The documentary should be made available to general public. It should also be watched by our planners, engineers, poli-ticians, people affiliated with LAWDA, municipal corpora-tions, and other agencies. It really calls for an introspection by one and all.
The two pillars |
Education and healthcare lie at the heart of development. For an economy, while physical capital
is the sum total of its physical assets employed in the production of goods and services, education and healthcare are its human capital. Its productivity rises when their levels are raised. The better the education and health care system, the richer a region, a state or a country in human capital.
The education system of Jammu and Kashmir fundamentally revolves around two economic processes- the interaction between economically moti-vated demand for education and the politically responsive supply of it; and the distinctions between benefits and costs of different levels of education.
On the demand side, there are two influences on the quantum of education demanded. First, a more educated indi-vidual’s prospects of availing future better employment opportunities are enhanced. Second, the educational costs that a student or his family must bear.
On the supply side, the quantity of education at the primary, secondary and university levels is largely deter-mined by political processes and policy responses, often unrelated to or in mis-alignment with economic criteria. While a study of demand side of the education sector in Jammu and Kashmir is inter-esting, the supply side of it is even more interesting and worth highlighting, particularly at the school levels. Given the unemployment scenario and an ever mounting political pressure on govern-ments to create more jobs, state govern-ments have increased the supply side of public education by endlessly employing teaching professionals year after year as a convenient policy measure to fire fight unemployment. What worsens this con-dition is that adequate measures have not been taken to also enhance the corre-sponding demand for public education, let alone ensuring the requisite infra-structural needs. However, private edu-cation systems in the state, even though affected by many non-economic factors, are largely determined by demand and supply, like any other commodity and service.
Meanwhile, in the human capital approach of development, when we speak of analysing the state’s educational
system for its niceties and nuances, it is also necessary to duly consider its health system. World Health Organisation in ‘Framework of Action (2007)’ describes that ‘a health system consists of all organi-zations, people and actions whose primary intent is to promote, restore or maintain health. A health system is therefore more than the pyramid of publicly owned facilities that deliver personal health ser-vices.”. Outside this formal system is an informal network, often used by poorer citizens, which includes traditional heal-ers and medicinal systems.
The Economic Survey Jammu and Kashmir 2013-14 reflects that “although, the number of medical institutions has increased considerably over the years from 124 to 3850 (1950-2012) but the dependence of people per medical institution is still very high. The health infrastructure in the state at all levels suffers from shortages that are both qualitative as well as quantitative in nature. Despite progress made in the health delivery system, the progress has been quite uneven with huge inter-district variations and rural and remote areas continue to have deficit in health facilities and man power.”
Last, Jammu and Kashmir is also beset by the challenges of the contemporary
issues faced by developing economies worldwide that encroach upon its human capital. These issues include absolute pov-erty, youth unemployment, child labour, AIDS epidemic, malnutrition, prevalent and ‘neglected’ diseases and lack of resil-ience to natural disasters. These issues are as relevant to the state as to any develop-ing economy, irrespective of their current levels of prevalence. For instance, there are more than 1.75 lakh working children (5-14 years) in Jammu and Kashmir as per the “Statistics on Children in India Handbook (2012)” published by National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development. The other issues are equally threatening. By ensuring basic education and health, such issues can be largely dealt with.
On the whole, ensuring adequate investments in physical and human capital, supplemented by effective man-agement and resolution of the issues will lead to unprecedented economic growth and development. However, these investments need to be cross-cuttingly coherent and in sync with market factors, policy measures and political responsiveness.
For Full text visit greaterkashmir.com
The writer is Project Manager JKEDI
Inside out by: malik sajad
Back to Talks?But will they be any different from the familiar diplomatic merry-go-round
Pakistan team may have disap-pointed its fans but the ongo-ing cricket world cup has come
handy to Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi to take fresh steps to resume dialogue with Pakistan. In the run up to the cup, Modi called his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif to convey the good wishes for his team and also informed him about the goodwill visit of the foreign secretary S Jaishanker, ostensibly to work out the framework for the resumption of talks. The sched-uled earlier talks between the foreign secretaries in August last had broken off after New Delhi took strong excep-tion to Pakistan High Commission to India Abdul Basit’s meeting Hurriyat leader Shabir Shah.
In some circles in Kashmir, Modi’s sudden warming towards Islamabad is attributed to the exigency of the BJP’s
alliance with PDP. As part of its many conditions for the alliance with saffron party, PDP has stipulated the revival of talks between India and Pakistan. While it is unlikely that the New Delhi will be forced to do a policy U-turn on Pakistan on the urging of a likely alli-ance partner, in rekindling the prospect of dialogue with Pakistan Modi may have inadvertently addressed the PDP desire.
But the dialogue between India and Pakistan will have to overcome many hurdles before it gets going. For one, Pakistan’s customary consultations with Hurriyat in the run up to or on the eve of the bilateral talks will once again be a big irritant. India, however, has let it be known that its only prob-lem is with the “sequencing” of these consultations which means that while Islamabad can meet Hurriyat, it should not do so around the time of the bilat-eral dialogue. For their part moderate separatists have reconciled themselves to this arrangement. Moderate Hurri-yat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is on record to have okayed such a mecha-
nism should it suit the two countries to resume talks. However, Hurriyat G chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani has opposed the discontinuation of this practice.
In the final analysis, however, Hur-riyat is unlikely to be an impediment
should the two countries seri-ously desire to embark on a fresh round of dialogue. The factors that really matter for the neigh-bours are the absence of vio-lence in Kash-
mir and the peace along LoC, which, as of now, is the case. Over the past year, Kashmir has witnessed by far its steep-est drop in the violence and in recent weeks, the borders have been conspicu-ously calm. This favourable turn in the situation couldn’t have been inciden-tal to the efforts at re-engagement but appears to have been a result of the
back-channel understanding between the countries.
The moot question is whether the current calm will hold till the time the neighbours return to the dialogue. And once the talks are resumed, will New Delhi stay the course consider-ing the fact that the process will face the familiar challenges in the form of the recurrent turbulent turns in the situation? This is unlikely to happen. The talks between the neighbours have traditionally been the devious process of the diplomatic merry-go-round which doesn’t get anywhere. Modi’s fresh overtures to Islamabad are believed to have been the result of the American pressure and also an attempt to dispel the negative interna-tional image generated by his decision to call off talks over the flimsy reason of Pakistan’s meeting with Hurriyat. While such motivations hardly give hope of a sustainable, purposeful dia-logue, the engagement between the two countries should be preferable to a lin-gering state of estrangement with its attendant fraught fallout on the region.
Celebrating emotional politics What we are witnessing right now is no different from what we have been witnessing in the past
F rom Indira-Abdullah Accord (1974) till present day the politi-cal elite of Jammu and Kashmir
thrived by playing emotional politics. Consequently, in political discourse emotional blackmail occupied the pri-mary place whereas the good gover-nance assumed secondary importance. This emotional politics is being played around the issues like special status, autonomy and self rule. The politi-cal elite of the State having immense expertise in understanding the behav-iour and temperament of their people often raise emotional issues in order to seek their mandate. Moreover, in an atmosphere where the emotional issues do better than the assurances of good governance and development, the political elite instead of competing on the agenda of clean and vibrant admin-istration prefer to contest on the basis of emotional rhetoric. In such a state of affairs the development of infrastruc-ture in the form of bijli, sadak, pani, rozgar and sehat remains a distant dream. For this one cannot blame poli-ticians alone but the fact of the matter is `as the king, so that subjects’.
No denying the fact that the year 1947 sounded the death knell of autoc-racy and the democracy ensured the people’s Raj. But, unfortunately the people of our State could not avail the maximum blessings and dividends of democracy in a way the other regions of the country did. From 1953 to 1974 National Conference patronized and groomed a separatist mindset in the State especially in the valley. But, after 1974 this organization had noth-ing to offer except emotional blackmail
couched in hallow slogans. No doubt this organization due to its anti-people working is about to die a natural death but it left behind a political culture i.e the politics of emotional blackmail.
It took almost five decades to PDP patron, an old player in politics, to understand the emotional political phenomenon of Kashmir. Banking on the malpractices, mis-governance, arrogance and above all the anti-people attitude of National Conference leader-ship especially during the hay days of insurgency, PDP emerged as a vibrant political force. Whereas National Con-ference and PDP contest each other on every issue but the fact remains that the later has consciously or uncon-sciously imbued certain legacies from the former. The most significant among these is the emotional blackmail.
Even a man on the street is con-scious about the fact that the main plank of PDP in recent past election campaign was: a). Safeguard against the communal polarization and b). Good governance. Whereas the good governance of the new coalition is yet a secret and distant dream, instead of safeguarding against communalism, the PDP in a short span of time turned a volte face and preferred a honeymoon with communalists. Another extreme is the recent statement of National Conference working President who blames PDP for a sellout. He has the guts to take the people for granted as everybody knows that he was the first person to rush to New Delhi just after declaration of results on 23 December to knock the doors of BJP leadership and renew the old bonds for want of alliance. So nobody takes his critique serious.
The PDP patron is conscious that keeping in view the secular ethos of Kashmir, his decision of alliance with Sang Parivar is an anti-current move. That is why he moved steadily and did his best to blink this unpleasant move under the shadow of emotional issues. For instance he raised the issue of ‘no fiddling with Article 370’. For havens’
sake let him explain that while in power has BJP ever attempted to fiddle with this constitutional arrangement. So, the issue of ‘no fiddling with article 370’ is itself a non-issue.
No doubt Farooq Abdullah who is believed to be the prodigal son of the soil handed power projects to NHPC in lieu of petty personal concessions. But, the claim of PDP to return these proj-ects from the corporation is not more than a gimmick. Let us see that how many projects would be returned by the new coalition. Similarly, the issue of West Pakistan Refugees was raised for the sake of issue and it would die down in due course of time.
The fact of the matter is that these issues were emphasized upon by PDP only to camouflage and legitimise its alliance with Sang Parivar. However, one cannot alone blame the leadership of National Conference and PDP for playing emotional politics because it is suited to the political culture of Kashmir. There is a wise saying that ‘while in Rome do as Romans do’. The people of the State in general and the Kashmiris in particular are basically addicted to emotional politics and as such the politicians contest each other over emotional blackmail of the masses. When people are savaged by emotional politics who will take care of ‘bijli, sadak, pani, rozgar and sehat and where from the culture of account-ability would come.
Prof. (Dr.) M. Y. Ganai is a Social and Political Activist
thought of thE day — Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. | Abraham Lincoln#
Mail your articles and letters at:[email protected]
reflections
(The Organization does not necessarily agree with the contents of the articles or letters published on our Edit page and Op-Ed page. Ideas expressed, details mentioned are completely authors’ own)
All responsible Majru Majeed | Alucha bagh
This refers to shedding of crocodile tears of various religious organisations regarding vari-ous issues pertaining to the state. It’s all cus-tomary, not a voice of heart. I remember when heads of all such organisations were going from village to village and pursuing youth to join the freedom struggle during nineties resulting in a huge destruction. But the way they saved themselves and instigated others for was shocking. I don’t know why these organ-isations are silent after the recent published report of Bar Association regarding prisoners. I appeal them all to raise their voice against this injustice done to the innocent.
Hajj passport M H Leharwal | Senior citizen
This refers to the passport requirement for per-forming Hajj. The issuance of the passport was then the job of Haj committee itself and no incon-venience was faced by the selected subjects.
The Central Government through passport department earns crores from JK unemployed youth who either for jobs or training purposes desire to go abroad as the chances for unemployed youth are very bleak here. At the same time people of this state, are feeling terribly frustrated. The problem gets even more complicated with senior citizens who are eager to perform Haj once in their life time, but due to the rigid procedure of Hajj Com-mittee of India, their dream remains a dream.
One of my friends submitted an on line appli-cation for issuance of international passport to avail the chance for Haj and the same was received by the passport office on 3/6/2014. Subsequently verification was also conducted by the police posts and verification report sub-mitted to the Police Hqrs. As on now, nine long months have lapsed and the international pass-port for Haj became a distant dream.
May be that has happened due to devas-tating September deluge. But had there been no requirement of a regular passport for Hajj, he would have got the chance to perform his obligation as a Muslim. Why should we suffer. Is there a way out? Why does not Hajj Commit-tee of India facilitate Hajj passport for aspiring pilgrims as it would do earlier.
PoINt of VIEW RIYAZ AHMAD
riyazahmed@ greaterkashmir. com
docuMENtaryDR A WAHID
coNcEPt ZubAIR ul ReHMAn lone
When people are savaged by emotional politics
who will take care of ‘bijli, sadak, pani, rozgar and
sehat and where from the culture of accountability
would come.
Modi’s fresh overtures to Islamabad are believed to have been the result of the American pressure
Education and healthcare. Without one you can’t think, without the other you can’t live
LEaf froM hIStory PRof. (DR.) M. Y. GAnAI
edittwitter.com/greaterKashmir_facebook.com/DailygreaterKashmirepaper.greaterKashmir.com
Printed and Published by: Rashid Makhdoomi on behalf of GK Communications Pvt. Ltd. | Editor: Fayaz Ahmad Kaloo | Legal Advisors: Bashir Ahmad Bashir (Sr. Advocate) Muhammad Altaf Haqani (Advocate) | Delhi Bureau: L79-A, 2nd Floor Malvia Nagar, New Delhi-17, Delhi Bureau Chief: ANIL ANAND (M) 09868219999 | Jammu Bureau: 3/A, Auqaf Complex, Auqaf Market, Gandhi Nagar, Ph: 0191-2430732
Published from: 6 - Pratap Park, Residency Road, Srinagar - 190001 | P. Box No: 558 (GPO) | R.N.I. No: 48956/88 | Regd. No: JK NP-6/SKGPO-2012-2014 | Phones & Email: Editorial: 2455435 Fax: 0194-2477782 [email protected], [email protected]
Advertising: 2474339, [email protected] | Circulation: 2474755, [email protected] | Printed at: E-Tech Printers, Industrial Estate Rangreth
