The Centre has constituted two special task forces for Jammu and Ladakh regions to identify the special development needs of the region and suggest measures to address them and to examine allocations to the regions in terms of infrastructure needs. They will make suitable recommendations to overcome the deficiencies. The task forces have been given three months to submit their reports.
While Abhijit Sen, a Planning Commission member, will be leading a task force on Jammu, Narendra Jadhav, another Planning Commission member, will be the chairperson of the team on Ladakh, an official notification said on Wednesday. It said the two task forces have been constituted keeping in view the immediate objectives to maintain peace and order and defuse the situation through confidence-building measures. The decision on forming of three task forces was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on September 25.
Besides Mr Sen, the other members for Jammu task force are joint secretary, (Plan Finance-I), ministry of finance, department of expenditure, divisional commissioner (Jammu), Dr Najeeb Jung, vice-chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia University and Dr Amaresh Dubey, professor of economics, Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, JNU. Joint secretary (Kashmir), ministry of home affairs, will be the convenor.
Apart from Mr Jhadav, the task force on Ladakh will comprise joint secretary, (Plan Finance-II), ministry of finance, department of expenditure, divisional commissioner, Kashmir, Prof. Akhtar Majeed, director, Centre for Federal Studies and dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Hamdard University.