‘Sainik Colony’ uproar in J&K Assembly

The PDP-BJP government in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday made it emphatically clear that no Sainik Colony was being constructed for former soldiers of the Indian Army and their families in the summer capital of Srinagar or elsewhere in the Kashmir Valley.

It said that no land had been allotted nor even identified for the purpose.

It seems that the government has, in view of its political fallout and potential disturbances, abandoned the proposal for setting up a Sainik Colony in Srinagar which had been fast-tracked when the State was under governor’s rule earlier this year. The governor’s administration had asked the officials concerned to identify land in Srinagar and neighbouring Budgam district for Sainik colonies to house troops and their families. Earlier, in April 2015, the Rajya Sainik Board (RSB), headed by governor N. N. Vohra, had approved the establishment of a Sainik colony close to Srinagar’s old airport; 21.6 acres of land were identified and the proposal sent to then chief minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, for approval.

In August 2015, the board, however, sent a second note to the State’s Home Department, seeking more land as 26 senior officers, 125 junior commissioned officers and over 900 soldiers had applied for plots in the proposed colony, requiring a total of 44 acres. In turn, the Home Department wrote to the deputy commissioners of Srinagar and Budgam for “information” regarding this.

The idea of setting up Sainik colonies in Srinagar and elsewhere had actually been mooted by BJP’s Rajya Sabha member Tarun Vijay in May last year to accommodate soldiers and families of those killed in the line of duty. Later Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar, told Parliament that since allotting land was a state subject the matter had been forwarded to the Jammu and Kashmir government.

Back in the Kashmir Valley, the issue began to snowball into a major political controversy with separatists threatening to launch an agitation against the proposed Sainik Colony on the plea that it would be a violation of Article 370 and the State Subject Law of 1927 which bars non-J&K residents from owning immovable property in the State. The government had sought to clarify then that only the soldiers who were permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir would be provided accommodation in Sainik Colony, but it has now stated that no such colony would be set up in Srinagar or elsewhere in the Valley.