Last Updated on September 14, 2021 at 2:17 pm
Jammu and Kashmir in late 1980s saw Pandit community leaving in large numbers. J&K administration offered domicile certificates to former residents who, or their ancestors, moved out of the erstwhile state years ago, provided they register with the Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner (Migrants) at Jammu seems did not go up to mark.
There are few people who are willing to avail this offer as admin hoped that they would avail the offer which would benefit them in taking up jobs, getting educational opportunities and would make it easier to get them to own land.
Scheme has been extended by administration to May 15, 2022.
Also, special camps will be organized by the office of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner and recently one such camp was organized in Delhi.
But the response in Delhi camp was not so well. Officials informed that only 3,000 turned up to take application forms, 806 of whom were registered and issued domicile certificates on the spot but 25000 unregistered Kashmiri Pandit families had likely settled in Delhi prior to 1989.
As per official figures, 41,119 Hindu and Sikh families have migrated from the J&K areas occupied by Pakistan. Of them, 31,619, including 5,300 settled elsewhere in the country, are registered with the Provincial Rehabilitation Officer, who doubles as Custodian Evacuee Department. Of them, 26,319 families are already counted as permanent J&K residents.
As per officials around 9,500 families had been denied registration by the then government in the late 1950s on the grounds that they either did not stay at camps set up by it, or did not come to the Indian side between 1947-54, or came to the Indian side unaccompanied by the head of the family, or the annual income of the head of the displaced family at the time of migration was more than Rs 300.
Officials estimate that the number of such migrants and displaced people might now be together more than 50,000 families and is believed that they permanently settled somewhere else.
There stands a problem with those who have migrated from areas now in Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK). The online option seeks their original place of residence. Relief Commissioner Pandita said that when they try to register them online, system does not accept their names of their native’s places. Further adding that matter has been taken to Home department as it cannot be solved at their end.
According to Ashok Khajuria, Convenor of the J&K BJP’s Refugee Cell and a member of the RSS that at the Delhi camp many of the families were issued domicile certificates on the spot off line but their numbers were very less.
