After 9 years, Kashmir Package continues to remain on paper

SRINAGAR: When Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh lands in Srinagar next week and talks of the state's development, he would be reminded of an ambitious announcement made nine years ago.

The Prime Minister's Reconstruction Plan (PMRP) aimed at setting up 65 projects worth Rs 24099.47 crore within five years is pending and worse, the cost has escalated to Rs 35261.04 crore. Only 39.72% of the sanctioned resources have been used up so far.

PMRP was split in three parts. One part of the package comprising projects worth Rs 6199.66 crore was assigned to the state government for implementation. The state has achieved a 78.22% completion for this part at an expenditure of Rs 4849.89 crore. Of the 19 projects envisaged under this plan, 13 have been completed.

The second part comprised 23 projects mostly under various health and tourism schemes outsourced to the state by the Centre. The state has achieved 32.26% completion, spending Rs 6721.77 crore. State government officials said this part of the PMRP has certain flagship projects like creating a huge sewerage and drainage system for the twin capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar and a futuristic water supply set up for Jammu. The three projects, now shifted to JNNURM, require a cumulative resource of Rs 3763 crore. But in reality, not a single penny has been received or spent on either of the three mega projects.

The third part that formed the largest chunk and the core focus of the PMRP related to an allocation of Rs 22339.61 crore (or 63.35% of the total package). It was this part of the package that triggered the controversy over the entire PMRP because the Prime Minister allocated resources to various central agencies for projects under implementation in the J&K.

These included energy projects by National Hydroelectric Power Corporation and road projects by Border Road Organisation. The implementation has been tardy for all these projects despite the fact that the principal beneficiary is the central government and not the J&K government. It is this problem that has led the state government to demand rejig of the PMRP.

"We are seeking release of allocated resources so that the state government would take-up the project directly or divert part of the resource to more pressing requirements," a senior officer said. PMRP had kept Rs 9955.19 crore allocated to two power projects at Pakal Dul and Bursar and NHPC was supposed to implement them.

Later, the situation changed. While Pakal Dul is part of the JV that state's fully-owned PDC has with NHPC, Bursar is unlikely to come up because of serious environmental problems. "We are seeking release of this resource so that we can implement Pakal Dul and man be the Baglihar-II."