New Delhi, Aug 8: While the three member panel of Centre’s interlocutors is all set to re-embark on mission Kashmir to “get feedback on their report” and “redraft” it accordingly, the Government of India Wednesday almost put all speculations regarding the much-hyped report to rest by announcing that “it is not planning any mechanism to implement the recommendations.”
“The government has not taken any decision on the interlocutors report on Jammu and Kashmir submitted last year and is not planning any mechanism to implement the recommendations,” Minister of State of Home Jitendra Singh told Rajya Sabha.
In a written reply, Singh said the government has not taken any decision on the report filed by journalist Dileep Padgaonkar and academicians MM Ansari and Radha Kumar.
To another question, Singh said the recommendations made in the report have been uploaded in the home ministry website mha.nic.in “for the benefit of the public at large” and hard copies have been placed in the parliament library “for an informed debate”.
He said that “some comments have been received and a number of viewpoints also appeared in the press”.
To a question on how much had been spent on the group so far and the time taken by them, Singh said the ministry has “so far expended an amount of Rs 63.20 lakh for work relating to the interlocutors,” and the panel submitted the report on Oct 12, 2011, within a year of its appointment.
Among the recommendations of the interlocutors was that a constitutional committee review all central laws extended to Jammu and Kashmir and make permanent article 370 of the constitution that grants the state special status.
The panel had been tasked with ascertaining the views of the people on resolving the Kashmir tangle.
In its report, the interlocutors also noted that there was consensus in the border state that its distinctive status guaranteed by article 370 must be upheld. The report also said its erosion over the decades must be re-appraised to vest it with such powers as the state needs to promote the people’s welfare on its own terms.
Pertinently, the much-hyped report has failed to gain ground anywhere from Srinagar to Delhi with everybody within and outside the state rejecting it outrightly.
Meanwhile, on its fresh visit to Kashmir, the three member panel on interlocutors will be staying for a week in Kashmir starting from August 30.
“We will be meeting cross section of people to get feedback on our report. We would again go to people and ask them what mistakes in the report are. We will seek suggestions from people about what we should add to our report and what issues should be put on backburner,” Radha Kumar told Greater Kashmir about their fresh visit.
The committee will not move outside Srinagar and will be meeting people at SKICC as the state government has shown its reservations on allowing them to move in the peripheries for “repeating the whole exercise afresh.”
WITH INPUTS FROM GKNN

Lastupdate on : Wed, 8 Aug 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 8 Aug 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 9 Aug 2012 00:00:00 IST