Srinagar: There has been no proper study done on the number of homeless people in Jammu and Kashmir. However, rural hinterlands of both Jammu as well as Kashmir have a good number of pockets facing poverty and acute shortage of quality housing.
In districts like Shopian, Kulgam, Bandipora, Reasi, and Udhampur many areas have poverty issues implying in some rural areas virtual homelessness. Srinagar the heart of Jammu and Kashmir battles its own unnoticed problem of urban poverty in its heritage hub of downtown Srinagar. The situation is such there that 3 to 4 families are often bundled in a single-storey of miserable housing facilities.
The number of homeless in J&K shows an increase of 44.32 per cent if we compare the figures of the 2011 census with those of 2001. While the number of such persons was 2,130 in the 2001 census, it stood at 3,076 in 2011.
Adding to the problem of homeless people is also the issue of encroachment. This year, during the anti-encroachment campaign in January-February, the government recovered thousands of kanals of government land from illegal encroachers during the anti encroachments drive.
It is in this context that the people of J&K today welcomed the government’s move to start providing 150 square yard plots to landless families here for the construction of their houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY). Announcing this, Jammu and Kashmir’s Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha said five marlas land (1,360 square feet) will be provided to each landless family.
Sinha announced plots being provided to 2,711 landless families across Jammu and Kashmir. “We will be providing land as per the list we have and hope to complete the existing backlog by March,” he said.
The entire spectrum of Jammu and Kashmir is buoyant over the development although the initiative has reached quite a few years after the Prime Minister announced the scheme. Sinha said in a press conference that the main obstacle here was that there was no provision for giving land to landless families. “We made a provision and approved it in the administrative council to provide land to landless construction of houses under the PMAY,” he said.
The people across Jammu and Kashmir are delighted over the move. Syed Irfan Hashmi, a well-known socio-economic and political analyst of Jammu and Kashmir, while talking to Global Bihari, said, “The major issues faced by the landless and homeless people of Jammu and Kashmir were ignored for a long. This step of granting 5 marlas of land to each landless family has created widespread joy in Jammu and Kashmir.”
Faisal Khankashi, an eminent youth voice and tourism stakeholder, told Global Bihari, ” The granting of land to the homeless and landless in Jammu and Kashmir is a historic development which will change the lives of poor masses towards betterment, and give a sense of belonging to the landless and homeless people”. He added: “We hope more such progressive developments are in offing .”
To have a home to live in is a dream of every family and this move to provide 5 Marla land both in urban and rural areas and building urban and rural housing is being seen as a “visionary” move in this context.
It is worth mentioning here that last year in October, Jammu and Kashmir won top awards in the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-Urban) during a three-day “India Urban Housing Conclave 2022” (IUHC 2022) organized by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in Rajkot, Gujarat. The conclave was inaugurated by Prime Minister, Narendra Modi on October 19, 2022. J&K won two awards including ‘Overall best performing Union Territory and best performing UT for the implementation of Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHCs)’.
The ground zero pulse in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the intellectual talk is that the Government initiatives on providing land to the landless, are a step towards creating a welfare-driven Jammu and Kashmir wherein the poor and their aspirations matter.
