Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed expressing concern and resolving to compensate all victims of last year’s floods may be a genuine expression. He said, “I will not rest till those affected by the floods of 2014 are provided with relief by the Govt. All those persons whose ‘Pacca’ or ‘Kutcha’ houses were damaged in the floods would be compensated”. But when it came to paying compensation for the crop damaged in the Jammu region just Rs 37 as the minimum and Rs 113 as the maximum was the yardstick. What Govt paid looked as if a big favour was done to the farmers of the region. Is it that CM’s heart bleeds more for Valley than for Jammu, from where PDP tasted its maiden political victory way back from R. S Pura. Whatever compensation the Centre must have released must have been on the basis of report sent by the field agencies. This is evident as Sub-Divisional Agriculture Officer is the disbursal officer who had signed the cheques. Surprisingly the Irrigation and Flood Control Minister Choudhary Sukhnandan is the local MLA and there has been no reaction from his side over the relief distribution within his constituency. Nature did play a cruel joke on the formers by damaging the crops and Govt has added salt to the injury by releasing the benevolent relief. Most of the Govt officials involved in relief calculations say the amount was in keeping with the Central norms, but a review was on. Further distribution has been put on hold after most farmers returned their cheques. If the relief is calculated and distributed on Central norms why then State Govt is talking of review and has accepted the cheques back from the affected farmers. No doubt there must be some error which the Govt may not accept today but surely will come out in the open some day by some central agency. The Chief Minister was categorical in saying that the Govt is pursuing a comprehensive flood management plan with Centre to initiate permanent protective measure from the impending threat of floods; which looks Kashmir specific and Jammu has nothing to gain out of it.
