Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir government has granted over 9.23 lakh kanals of state and evacuee land, besides 2,421 urban plots and quarters, to the Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) displaced persons living in the Jammu region.
These involved 26,319 families of displaced person, who fled parts of PoK during the holocaust of 1947 and reached parts of Jammu region.
This was revealed in a written reply by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to a question of BJP MLA Rajiv Jasrotia in the Assembly here.
Giving details, the Chief Minister, who holds charge of the Relief and Rehabilitation Ministry, said land, plots and quarters were allotted to displaced persons of PoJK of 1947 in 1954 and they were granted proprietary rights on state land in 1965.
“A total land allotted to displaced persons of 1947 is 6,80,850 kanals of evacuee land and 2,43,000 kanals of state land (totaling around 10 lakh kanals),” he said.
As per details, 793 urban plots (30 x 60 feet) were allotted to these families (Bakshi Nagar – 629, Udhampur – 2, Natipora Srinagar – 42, Patoli – 120) in six colonies.
Besides, 1,628 quarters were allotted to displaced persons” families of urban areas (Bakshi Nagar – 1,450, Nowshera – 50, Udhampur – 100, Rajouri – 28), it said.
The proprietary rights were vested on state land in 1965 and occupancy rights on evacuee land were granted in 1976. Proprietary rights on urban plots and quarters were granted to them in 1971, it said.
The Chief Minister said that 46 rural bastis of displaced persons were regularized under the slum improvement scheme.
Similarly, the government also implemented the allotment order of 1954 for Chhamb displaced persons of 1965 and 1971, he said.
As per the documents, 2 lakh kanals of land were allotted to displaced persons of 1965 and 1971 from Chhamb through the Chhamb Displaced Persons Rehabilitation Authority.
As many as 8,000 families of PoJK refugees, who were allotted less than the prescribed scale, reported deficiency in allotment, he said.
In the year 2000, the Government of India sanctioned a package—Rs 5,000 per kanal was given to those who reported a shortfall in land allotment, and the upper ceiling was fixed at Rs 25,000, without taking into consideration the quantum of deficiencies, he said.
Later, in the year 2008, this amount of Rs 5,000 per kanal was further enhanced to Rs 30,000 per kanal, wherein the upper ceiling was fixed at Rs 1.5 lakh and the conditions imposed in the year 2000 were also removed, it said.
Rs 2 lakh was also provided to urban displaced persons who had not been allotted plots, the Chief Minister said.
At the time of partition of the country in 1947, 31,619 families migrated to the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control, he said.
“Around 31,619 families from Pakistan Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK) crossed to this side of the border and settled down in the districts of Kathua, Samba, Jammu, Rajouri, and Poonch of the Jammu Province,” he said.
Out of these 31,619 PoJK families, 26,319 families settled within the state and 5,300 families subsequently opted to settle in other parts of the country, with some of them returning and settling back in J&K, he said.
Similarly, 10,065 families shifted to safer places from 47 villages of the Chhamb area and were settled in 156 bastis in Jammu, Samba, and Kathua districts, he added.
