Local residents or Administration!
Mohammad Shafi Pakeeza
Baramulla being a historical district is constantly being neglected by successive governments as well as administration post 1947. Baramulla town was once considered to be gateway of Kashmir and all business/Trade was done through Baramulla Muzafarabad road.
But after partition Baramulla started to lose its importance, its glory and suffered heavy loss in its development. In a recent survey by Neeti Ayoog Baramulla was listed on top of underdeveloped Districts in JK particular.
Is this in response to hospitality? Sober nature and multi religious flavor and secular culture? And moreover due to our resolve to denounce/ disassociation from anti-social and anti-national/violent attitudes, people of this town in particular and District in general are peace loving and feel suffocated in any hostile atmosphere.
This is the reason that Administration as well as government took this district as for granted results in poor development of this district.
On one hand it’s only people of this district who don’t believe in hostility, tensions and violence that government/Administration did not took this district seriously which lead to suffer in its overall development.
People of Baramulla are considered to be civilized, we have a large no of talented young boys and girls, Baramulla have produced great political leaders some pro freedom and some pro Indian like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Professor Bhat, Muzafar Hussain Beigh, Mohammad Shafi Uri, Ansari Sahab so on and so forth, who have played their important roles in the politics of JK.
This fertile land can even produce more leaders’ doctors’ engineers etc if the peaceful atmosphere is utilized in the developmental of Baramulla and I don’t think that is going to happen in near future also.
After 2002 govt took an initiative to develop Baramulla town and prepared a project under the title of Greater Baramulla but miserably that too could not happen because government ended up due to land row in 2008.
Dewa Sahab the then DDC Baramulla once again took the initiative to work on the project but Umar Abdullah led Government transferred him from Baramulla.
Then again a new project was prepared for restoring the lost glory of Baramulla town namely Decongestion project some 4 or 5 years back but till date Government succeeded only in dismantling some structures at Kakar Hamam and made the inhabitants homeless forever.
Before creating such situations government should have taken the measures of rehabilitation in favor of dislocated families.
After the transfer of Dewa sahab Baramulla witnessed many DC’s one among them was Yasha Mudgal who also tried her level best to get some projects approved but unfortunately she too could not manage to get some breakthrough.
Then many more DC’s came to here but none of them utilized there to make some credible achievements in the developmental of Baramulla. This is the reason sometimes I think that Baramulla remained undeveloped due to various reasons know to the higher ups, and that is why none from District Administration has done any serious efforts with regards to its development although civil society has always played its role in highlighting the importance issue of Baramulla.
We have lost our hope and trust in Administration because of their non-serious attitudes towards the developmental of Baramulla. We feel it only lip service from admins just to complete their tenure of posting and by this way we put all the responsibilities on the shoulders of District Administration for their poor efforts.
Why should we trust Administration or Government because we know their broken promises their non-serious approach and efforts? We have poor roads impure drinking water unplanned drainage and electrical poles, encroached subways, links by links, Flood channels and what not, everything in unplanned be it roads, water supply pipes and all.
Nobody is actually accountable and none is bothered about this mess. There is complete mess in departments, no coordination, if A Department writes to B Department, B Department is ignoring it. And they are trying to make people fools in the name of development.
How much time will administration further waste and from when they will start to take development seriously is a Big Question to you Dear Admins?
Hope our questions will be shortly answered so that other questions may not rise.
(The views are of author who is a social activist and vice chairman JK Against Corruption)