JAMMU: There is an unending debate and discussion about the discrimination meted out to Jammu region over the decades. By doing so the leadership of the region only makes discriminators more powerful and perpetuators of discrimination, and it also makes sons and daughters of the soil look helpless. This causes more harm than good to their psyche as they are driven by the assumption that they are going to be left out. This is a psychology of complex and there is only one complex- inferiority complex.
Jammu is blessed with talent. It has rich natural resources. This is the land of the people who have stood like a rock against invaders and made supreme sacrifices during wars of today or yesteryears. The real problem, however, is that region is dependent on others; it is yet to tap its talent and potential. That is where the discrimination begins and multiplies.
In today’s Jammu – there are mighty rivers like Chenab, feeding our hydro-electric units. On this river alone, there are projects, ranging from Salal, Dul Hasti, Baglihar, and work is in progress on several other projects – Pakaldul, Kiru. Thousands of megawatts of power are generated from these projects.
The rivers are national resource and property, but the region through which these flow and the people who preserve these should get their due share. The NHPC-run projects give royalty of 12 per cent of the power generated, but all of that doesn’t come to Jammu. This is both discrimination and injustice. This decreases interests of the locals in the projects. A formula should be worked out to define share of the region from the power generated by these projects. And as far as Baglihar power project, which is under the state sector, the power distribution should be done in a fair manner. This claim is due to a number of facts; first the locals have their right and share on the land, water and its power generation; second such a share will encourage them to help the companies to construct more environment-friendly development projects.
It is expected of the companies engaged in the construction of the projects that not only should they be giving employment to the locals but also train them in engineering and technology to construct and run such projects. The labour force in these projects comes from locals, but in other sectors their presence is negligible. Those leaders, who only plead for the local employment as labourers are misleading the companies and locals. Their status needs to be upgraded. They must get the training alongside the work.
In Reasi district, huge reserves of lithium were discovered early last year- 2023. These reserves, if not exploited, are just like stones serving no purpose whatsoever. This is a big source of empowerment of the local population, and their economy. The local leadership is lost in fighting over minor issues without caring for the larger interests. Locals do not have wherewithal to extract lithium. It requires high skills and huge money to do so. But the least, they could have done is to pressurize the government to invite bids for its extraction in which the locals should be made stakeholders and learn how to deal with the commercialization of the huge deposits of this precious metal that can transform the shape and life of the people in this particular sub region but also the entire region. There is a fear that it should not fall on the fate that huge and precious sapphire mines of Paddar met. The sapphire mines have remained unutilized. During days of high terrorism, much of the precious sapphire was stolen and smuggled. That has dented the economy and also brought huge loss to the region in all its forms and manifestations. Jammu’s resources are left like that and the disempowerment follows.
It all takes to the conclusion that Jammu should look after its talent and resources without any hesitation and demand its share where it is due with facts and figures. The haphazard narrative of discrimination without presenting exact statistics in the public domain is a self-defeating exercise. Once Jammu, its people and leadership wake up to their own power, no one will be able to discriminate with it.
