NCM team to visit J&K to understand development issues

A high-level team of the National Commission for Minorities will visit Jammu and Kashmir next month to have a dialogue with the people there and understand development issues after provisions of Article 370 were abrogated, the Commission's chairman said on Thursday.

National Commission for Minorities chairperson Ghayorul Hasan Rizvi said that at the commission's meeting on Wednesday it was decided that in the first half of September a high-level team will tour Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.

The Commission team will talk to people and officials from both the proposed Union territories to understand their development issues, Rizvi said, lauding the government's decision to abrogate Article 370 provisions.

The announcement of the NCM team visit comes after a six-member Minority Affairs Ministry team led by its secretary made a two-day visit to the Kashmir Valley earlier this week to identify areas for implementing centrally-sponsored development projects.

Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had said that the focus of the ministry is now on Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. He had said that the revocation of provisions of Article 370 has opened up possibilities of large scale development there.

Naqvi also said the Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakram (PMJVK) will also be applicable in all areas of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

The PMJVK is a centrally-sponsored scheme that seeks to improve the development of minority concentration areas through the creation of socio-economic infrastructure, provision of basic amenities, and other measures.

With a large number of minority community population comprising mostly of Muslims, Buddhists and Sikhs in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Minority Affairs Ministry's role assumes significance there.