Reacting sharply to the Pakistani shelling on innocent civilians in Poonch sector resulting in killing of 12th class student, former Minister and senior Congress leader Raman Bhalla appealed for ending the bloodshed of innocent people residing near the borders. He demanded concrete steps so that lives of innocent civilians, including women and children who are under virtual siege from the past one month are safeguarded. Condoling the death of civilians in continued shelling from across the border, Bhalla said the border skirmishes have brought untold miseries upon the people, in particular those residing near the International Border and the Line of Control (LoC).He expressed grave concern over the recent incidents of multiple ceasefire violations on the border of Jammu, Samba, Rajouri and Poonch and condemned the killings of innocents and injuries to others. He urged the Hospital authorities to ensure free and best possible Medicare facilities to these people. He expressed solidarity with the terrified people and said Congress shares their agony and grief.
He also prayed for peace to departed soul and demanded ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh to next of those killed in the shelling. Bhalla also sought formulation of a contingency plan to meet the challenges unfolded by border shelling besides keeping available mobile medical teams for timely assistance to the suffering people. He expressed concern over delays generally being caused in shifting the injured to hospitals. He expressed grave concern over the situation along the Indo-Pak border and LoC which has caused many innocent deaths besides injuries to several others, and loss of live stock, crops and other property during the past over one year. He said that the situation has become grim in view of repeated incidents of shelling across the border targeting the civilian population.
Former Minister expressed serious concern over transferring thousands of cases which are presently pending in the Srinagar and Jammu wings of the High Court to Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT).Assailing the decision with regard to transfer of pending cases with regard to service matters of the Jammu and Kashmir government employees to Central Administrative Tribunal, Chandigarh, bhalla sought revocation of the order and allowing the prevailing mechanism to continue. The order is uncalled for and almost a punishment for the aggrieved employees of Jammu and Kashmir, who will be required to proceed to Chandigarh for redressal of their grievances”, he said, calling for its abeyance forthwith in the larger interest of the employees. The decision has directly impacted thousands of employees, who mostly comprise non-gazetted, and Class IV employees, daily wagers, casual, consolidated and contractual work- force, who cannot afford the litigation far away in Chandigah. “The decision also foils the commitments made by governments from time to time to ensure door-step justice to the people and in this case the employees”, Bhalla said, urging the government to rollback the order in the larger interest of the state subjects of Jammu and Kashmir.
Bhalla expressed concern over ignoring of local people who lost their daily earning due to lock down including drivers, conductors, peons, chowkidars and those belonging to labour class as they can’t move out of their houses to earn their living since March. These people are without wages as no work no pay formula applies to them in private and unorganised sector, he said. Some of trucks, Taxi, auto, matadors and bus drivers are sitting without salaries and they have no money to pay fee of their school going children. He appealed Lt. Governor of J&K UT to issue directions to the concerned authorities to deliver the necessarily food items to the local needy residents .Bhalla said due to lock down labour class has badly suffered and still labour is stuck and hit hard and are making desperate attempts to reach their homes. On this May Day, Government should ensure food to every labourer so that no body sleeps empty stomach and arrangements should be made to ensure that every labourer reaches his home safely. Labour is backbone of development in every sphere like Human Development and Industrial Development. On Labour Day, we should resolve to ensure that labour does not feel isolated. Sense of security and belongingness needs to be provided to this work force so that we could lead the world in human development and Industrial development, it all depends on the sincere, dedicated and dynamic functioning of work force.
Meanwhile, former Minister today continued the distribution of ration and other essential items among needy people. Today he distributed food items at Bablayana, Bandu Rakh, Panchayat Dharap, Akli Kour Singh Nagar, Dashmesh Nagar, Azad Nagar and Bhour Camp. Prominent among those who accompanied Bhalla included Block President Satish Sharma, Block President Amrit Bali, Block President Surinder Singh Dutt, DCC General Secretary Distt Aman Bawa, DCC General Secretary Jatin Vashisht, Onkar Singh Deepa, Vicky Warna, Diwan Chand, Sahil Sangotra, Sarpanch Kashmir Singh, Sarpanch, Shamshar Singh, Sohan Katal, Sunil Katal, Suman Choudhary, Babhi Kumar, Kewal Krishan, Raghubansh Singh, Parmjeet beside others.
Testing is the first priority, second is scientific tracing and treatment. We need to augment our secondary healthcare system, which are the district hospitals. Former Minister pitched for substantial but “focussed and intelligent” testing for corona virus especially in identified zones or areas where it is important to carry out tests. Bhalla batted for digital contact tracing of corona virus cases that may prove to be an effective tool post-lockdown. He said at present, after identifying a corona virus case, contact tracing is manually done of all those people who the patient has come in contact with to see whether they show any symptoms of the disease and then isolate them, and their contacts further.”The problem with COVID-19 disease is that many people who have the disease and who transmit it doesn’t show symptoms at all. Significantly, the spread of the disease is very rapid. So we need a different type of contact tracing. That can be achieved by digital contact tracing,” he said.
Bhalla noted that because they could not go out to work for their daily income, they have limited resources to fend for themselves and their family.“We need to do more as a people to alleviate the suffering of this disadvantaged and vulnerable group, Bhalla said. He, however, acknowledged the efforts of all those who have gone out to support and provide some essential items to the less privileged. In this critical time, it is incumbent upon us to ensure the availability of food and medicines to the people who will face difficulties during the lockdown. Urgent measures are needed to distribute food and medicine kits to the deprived people on behalf of our party,” he said.
We need an immediate action plan to manage our agriculture and livestock sectors in the interest of both producers and consumers, he said. The first thing is to ensure free movement of farm produce, livestock feed and veterinary medicines. It is obvious that not all issues can be addressed overnight. But the minimum the government can do is to ensure ground-level implementation of already-taken decisions. Food, feed and agricultural inputs have been specifically notified as essential services. But there are several problems at the level of implementation that are coming to notice. The Centre has issued various directives/notifications, many of them brief and general in nature. Based on these, the chief secretaries of states have issued circulars to their respective district administrations. Many of these have either not reached the local authorities and police personnel or are not clearly worded. As a result, the smooth movement of essential items has been affected.