Land to landless a big relief for poor

While the government’s decision to allot five marlas of land each to landless families under PMAY (G) beneficiaries is a welcome and pro-poor step, the administration must make the entire land allotment process a transparent and corruption-free affair. This decision would provide a big relief to the houseless and landless people in Jammu and Kashmir if implemented in its real spirit without exploiting it for vested political agenda. The allotment of five marlas of land to each houseless is a major relief to the poor section of society. As such, a white paper on the real beneficiaries of the scheme must be issued to ward off apprehensions and doubts being raised about the genuineness of the scheme. Even in the past, schemes were launched with much fanfare about the welfare of the landless and houseless people but due to political and vested interests, those schemes died their own death. Unlike in the past, not a single undue person should succeed by fraudulent means to take refuge in the PMAY (G) beneficiary lists under the new housing policy to usurp the right of any genuine person. It is a big tragedy with Jammu and Kashmir that the basic spirit of most of the Central welfare schemes gets plagued due to undue intervention of local politicians and unfair practices at the hands of unscrupulous implementing agencies. So, it was very necessary that a robust monitoring, scrutiny and surveillance mechanism be put in place to overview the PMAY (G) and finalisation of the beneficiary lists and the allotment of five marlas of land is done in the fairest and most transparent manner.