Rs 1,265 crore help provided to 23,000 PoK families

NEW DELHI: The Centre has since 2016 provided Rs 1,265 crore to 23,000 families displaced from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir during the 1965 and 1971 wars and have been staying in J&K without voting rights, a home ministry official has said.

The displaced families have been demanding voting rights and chance to contest elections. They are allowed to vote in Lok Sabha polls but not for elections to the J&K assembly as they hail from 24 assembly seats of PoK left vacant and to which polls cannot be held.

Earlier this month, the Union Cabinet included 5,300 more families who initially moved out of J&K but returned. “The total number of families included in the rehabilitation package are 41,684. Rs 5.5 lakh per family is being transferred to bank accounts of these beneficiaries after seeking details from the state administration,” an MHA official told ET.


According to the scheme announced in 2016, Centre will transfer Rs 5,49,692 to each family while the state administration will pay Rs 308 per head. “The government not only wants to expedite the release of financial package but also aims to bring forward alleged atrocities committed by Pakistan in PoK,” said a senior government official.

Some of these families were displaced during Partition in 1947 and others during the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. Refugees from West Pakistan have also raised demands for similar package, following which the Centre in 2015 approved certain concessions for those settled in Jammu and Kashmir.