The Ministry of Home Affairs has confirmed that 3,841 Kashmiri Pandits have returned to Kashmir in the last few years and have taken up jobs there under the PM’s Rehabilitation Scheme, as they are feeling more secure after the Abrogation of Article 370. Interestingly, 1,997 migrants selected for jobs under the same package in April 2021, are preparing to move to the valley soon as well.
For the uninitiated, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s package for Jammu and Kashmir, over 30,000 Kashmiri Pandits have applied for around 2,000 re-allocated government jobs in January 2021.
#NewsAlert | #MHA says, ‘#KashmiriPandits are feeling more secure in the recent past, Over 3,000 Pandit youths have moved back to the Valley and took jobs there under Rehabilitation Scheme’.
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) July 28, 2021
More details by Madhavdas G. pic.twitter.com/5lssh9zGqq
According to reports, the Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has been taking proactive steps to facilitate the return of the Kashmiri Pandits to the valley. In the latest move, under the guidance of Sinha, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has approved the transfer of 278 canal lands in 5 districts for the construction of over 2600 flats as transit accommodation to ensure the return of Kashmiri migrant employees.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had donated the land to the Disaster Relief Rehabilitation, and Rebuilding department in 2015 as part of an Rs. 80,000-crore development package for Jammu and Kashmir aimed at creating a modern, progressive, and prosperous region.
The Jammu and Kashmir administration, working towards fulfilling the commitment made by the central government to resettle all displaced Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley by 2022, is planning to set up 6000 transit accommodations in all for the migrant Kashmiri Pandits at an estimated cost of Rs 920 crores. This included 208 in south Kashmir’s Kulgam and 96 in central Kashmir’s Budgam. Another set of 1,200 transit flats are being constructed in Ganderbal, Shopian, Bandipora and north Kashmir’s Baramulla and Kupwara districts.
The L-G administration has set up new deadlines for readying the transit accommodations. The construction work at Shopian will be completed by March 2022 and in north Kashmir’s Baramulla and Bandipora by November 2022.
“There are many families living in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and other parts of the country and abroad who are willing to return home or register themselves. An extensive exercise must be rolled out to reach out to them through proper means of communication,” Manoj Sinha had said.
In the 1990s, hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits had fled the Valley due to growing terrorism in J and K and settled in various regions of the country.
Central govt creating as many 25,000 jobs for Kashmiri Pandits, plans to resettle them by 2022: HM Amit Shah
HM Amit Shah had in February 2021, reiterated in the Lower House that the central government intends to re-settle all Kashmiris Pandits, who have been displaced from the valley over the years, by 2022. He said that the government also had plans to create as many as 25,000 jobs for these migrants and ensure train connectivity to the region.
Along with providing Rs 13,000 per month to the 44,000 families of Kashmiri pandits with relief cards, Shah had asserted that the central government has also been providing free ration to them and has plans to settle them back in their house in the valley by 2022.
