Shadow Correspondent
JAMMU, MAY 22:
Former MLA & President, Jammu and Kashmir Batwal Welfare Association at a meeting held here today has urged the Government of India to grant a ‘Special Package’ for the development and empowerment of Batwals on the basis of survey report of their ethnographic study undertaken by the Central Planning Commission in 1994.
Lakhotra while speaking on the pitiable socio-economic condition of Batwal people living in urban, rural and hilly areas of the State, said that in early 1994, the Government of India with an aim to ameliorate the living standard of the Batwal Community people launched a study to assess their socio, economic and cultural life in the J&K State.
The field work, as laid down by the Planning Commission of India, started in about forty villages of Jammu region, got completed by the end of April, 1994.
In this regard, the Jammu and Kashmir Batwal Welfare Association unanimously passed a resolution to urge the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to look into the matter and sanction ‘Special Package’ in favour of Batwal Community on the basis of survey report of their ethnography study.
Lakhotra also urged the State Chief Minister Mehboba Mufti to put a look on his Association’s series of memorandums submitted in her office in the last twelve years and seek status report regarding the same from the concerned department as, till date, nothing has been done therein, he added.
