The central government is all set to announce a Rs. 2,000 crore package for the displaced people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), who are residing in India, as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initiative to help the people of PoK and the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan.
A senior official said that the home ministry will be placing the details of the package before the Union Cabinet for approval soon.
"We hope that within a month, the package will get approval from the Union Cabinet and the funds could be distributed among the beneficiaries," the official told the Press Trust of India (PTI).
The refugees from PoK and West Pakistan, who settled down in different districts of Jammu and Kashmir, are not permanent residents of the state in terms of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution. Some families got displaced during the 1947 Partition, while some during the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. They are allowed to vote in the Lok Sabha polls, but not in the Jammu and Kashmir state elections.
The state government has identified 36,348 families for distribution of the package under which each family will get around Rs 5.5 lakh, the PTI reported.
Jammu and Kashmir Sharanarthi Action Committee (JKSAC), an organisation representing the displaced people of the PoK, has consistently said that the package should not be the final settlement because a total of Rs 9,200 crore was required to settle all the displaced families.
The Centre in January 2015 had given its nod to certain concessions for the refugees from West Pakistan residing in Jammu and Kashmir considering the problems faced by them. Equal employment opportunities, special recruitment drives for induction into paramilitary forces, admission for the children of refugees in Kendriya Vidyalayas, to mention a few, are a part of the concessions granted by the government.
The government had recently reiterated that PoK and Gilgit-Baltistan are a part of Jammu and Kashmir. Reports suggest that the Centre is thinking of extending an invitation to the diaspora from PoK, Gilgit-Baltistan for the next Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas which will take place in Bengaluru.
PM Modi had spoken about the plight of the people of PoK, Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan, first, at an all-party meeting to discuss the situation in Jammu and Kashmir on Aug 12, and then in his Independence Day address to the country.
