Amid a rising clamour for a liquor ban in Jammu and Kashmir (J&Okay), the Opposition Peoples Democratic Social gathering (PDP) has launched a marketing campaign for this demand. With the Finances session of the J&Okay Meeting set to begin on March 3, the PDP has submitted a personal member’s Invoice looking for a ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol within the Union Territory (UT). The PDP, which has solely three MLAs, is gearing as much as elevate varied issues of public concern within the Home. The PDP Legislature Social gathering chief, Waheed ur Rehman Para, the 36-year-old Pulwama MLA, can also be the get together’s youth wing chief. In an interview with The Indian Specific, Waheed Para speaks on a variety of points. Excerpts:
The PDP has submitted some personal member Payments for the upcoming Meeting session. Why are they vital?
Each MLA can place three (personal) Payments earlier than the Home (in a session). Until now the Transaction of Enterprise Guidelines compiled for the Meeting haven’t been mentioned with us. We don’t even have its draft. We simply received a notification that you may submit the Payments you need to carry. So, what now we have centered on are fears which have taken maintain on the bottom, primarily dispossession that individuals really feel with regard to land and jobs, amongst others.
Our first personal Invoice, “Jammu And Kashmir (Regularisation And Recognition of Property Rights of Residents In Public Land) Invoice, 2025”, seeks to offer housing. That is in mild of households being evicted from state land final 12 months. We had opposed this then however now that there’s a authorities in place, I feel we can assist by regularising it. Already there are schemes like PMAY, then why would we make anybody homeless by evicting them from the land they’ve been staying on for 20 years. We have to safe their shelter.
Second is “The Jammu and Kashmir Civil Providers (Particular Provisions for Regularization of Advert hoc, Every day Wagers, Want Based mostly and different short-term staff) Act 2025”. There are over one lakh day by day wage staff in J&Okay. These are those that in some circumstances have given 30 years of their lives to the federal government. Then they’re instructed that they haven’t any safety and requested to depart employment. This course of is dehumanising as a result of the salaries don’t are available in time and this disturbs the entire household. So for this, now we have sought a job safety Invoice which covers all informal and day by day wage staff.
One other vital Invoice, submitted by my colleague Mohammad Fayaz Mir, is the “J&Okay Prohibition of Alcohol Invoice, 2025.”
We’re additionally proposing a Sheikh ul Alam College for Pulwama.
Story continues under this advert
There’s a fiscal concern over the imposition of a ban on alcohol in J&Okay. How do you assume the UT would possibly compensate for the income introduced in by the sale of alcohol within the wake of this ban?
This can be a UT with a excessive prevalence of medication and the inhabitants is already coping with that. Once you usher in societal considerations and tie them with considerations of vacationer security and ladies security, these ought to drown out the fiscal considerations.
Additionally, I’m certain this isn’t the one factor that runs the J&Okay authorities. We now have a lot non secular tourism — from Mata Vaishno Devi to Amarnath Yatra. Lakhs of individuals journey right here for his or her non secular beliefs and that is other than the Muslim majority character of J&Okay. Subsequently, that is additionally to ship a message that we’re not going to offer social acceptance to the consumption of alcohol.
There are additionally monetary implications to regularising day by day wagers. How do these items make sense in a revenue-deficit UT?
Story continues under this advert
There are prices however the authorities might additionally apply the Minimal Wages Act. How will you have a day by day wager working 30 days for Rs 3,000? There are horrible accounts of households struggling. Moreover, quite a lot of your important companies are working on these staff. Ambulance drivers, watchmen or safety guards, staff in irrigation and flood management — people who find themselves not even counted. A non-public safety guard will get Rs 15,000 in a hospital and the government-employed individual will get Rs 5,000. There’s a massive disparity right here and it must be addressed.
Many of the opposition to the Nationwide Convention-led authorities is coming from the PDP, greater than the principal Opposition BJP, at the very least within the Valley. Why?
The BJP is half the federal government. The Lt Governor is the top of presidency and he’s the Centre’s nominee. So the BJP is not going to say something towards the top of UT. In addition they haven’t any points in relation to exercising energy. The Central companies are below the L-G, so any BJP representatives can method the L-G for work they want applied. All officers know who’s in cost they usually additionally hearken to them. The opposition throughout the Meeting is about 5 of us.
The NC authorities has said that it has to work with the Centre for securing the pursuits of the J&Okay folks. You’re claiming the BJP is not going to counter them, so the place does this depart the PDP?
Story continues under this advert
We’re elevating problems with the folks. The place the Centre is anxious, we elevate our voice towards the Central authorities and the place there are problems with governance, we maintain Chief Minister Omar Abdullah accountable. There are calls for which might be inside Omar Abdullah’s competence because the CM and we’re asking for these to be addressed — liquor ban, regularisation, and many others. These points want debate and dialogue.
I perceive that, say, Article 370 is outdoors the prerogative of the 90 elected MLAs and that the restoration of statehood can also be maybe outdoors its purview now. However what’s inside their (NC authorities’s) competence, they need to deal with them urgently. They will take up these points one after the other and provides sanctity to the Meeting too.
