Giving communal color to NIT issue: Abdul Haq
Lolab, May 08: Senior PDP Leader and Minister for Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Law & Justice Abdul Haq Khan on Sunday accused opposition of risking the lives of Kashmiri students in other states of India by trying to give communal color to NIT issue.
Terming the series of events as a non-issue, Abdul Haq said Congress is raising the NIT issue in other states thereby giving it a communal color. He said by doing so the Congress is risking the lives of thousands of Kashmiri students who are studying in various universities and colleges of the country.
Addressing a huge a mammoth gathering in his home constituency in Dewar Lolab, he said National Conference is also helping Congress in this regard to create problems for state government.
Minister said NC and Congress is afraid of a stable government as they have realized that Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has started working on ground and people have started feeling the change. “This has left both the parties (Congress and NC) uneasy and out of frustration they are trying to destabilize the government by raising issues like NIT and trying to flare issues like Handwara,” he said during the speech.
Terming the Handwara issue as unfortunate, minister said attempts were being made to repeat the 2010 situation by flaring up Handwara incident. He said law will take its own course and reaffirmed that government will not allow anybody top hijack such incidents to flare tension in the state.
Earlier Minister said to bring Kupwara district especially Lolab valley on tourism map is top priority of the government. He said a network of roads are coming up in Kupwara district especially in Lolab valley which will bring reduces the distances and bring the valley on the global map of tourism.
He further said the connectivity to Lolab will be enhanced and in this regard construction of various roads is in pipeline. He said government has planned a 40 Crore project to construct a road which will connect Khumriyal with Ring village in Kupwara district.
He said the roads in Safawali Lolab and Namgari in Lolab are also in governments plan for construction for which an estimated cost will be 100 crores. He said Lolab-Bandipora road will be thrown open soon by the government. Minister said
Minister assured that all pending works of Rural Development Department will be completed on priority as funds for the same are available in abundance.
Haq said it is for the first time that the funds in Rural Development Department are being used fruitfully to create productive assets instead of allowing the money to go down the drains. He said in the same way MGNREGA funds would also be utilized to create productive assets in villages besides doing flood related works. Minister said Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has appreciated the working of Rural Development As the department recently inaugurated as many as 56 bridges and same number of bridges has been completed by the department
The minister said several initiatives are in pipeline on developmental front to ensure all-round transformation of the developmental landscape of Jammu and Kashmir. He said productive use of funds in RDD will be instrumental in changing socio-economic profile of the people living in the rural areas, besides creating much needed employment opportunities.
Minister later reviewed the developmental works in the district and interacted with the officials of the district.