Aragam (Bandipora), May 5: Senior Congress leader and Minister for Public Health and Engineering (PHE), Taj Mohiuddin, on Saturday lashed out at Peoples Democratic Party and his coalition partner National Conference for raising slogans like Self-Rule and Autonomy.
 “Congress is the main political party and every party has to enter into alliance with us whenever needed. Slogans like Self-Rule and Autonomy are of no use. These are aimed at misleading the common masses, and are a mere rhetoric,” Taj said while addressing a rally here in north Kashmir.
 “What will people do with Autonomy and Self-Rule when the state is under the debt of thousands of Crores. Jammu and Kashmir has less income and more expenditure,” he said.
 Taj said the state government’s income is Rs 3000 Crores while it needs Rs 13000 Crores to pay salary of employees, needs Rs 3500 Crores for planning and is losing Rs 2300 Crores to Power Development Department.
 “I wonder how the slogans like Self Rule and Autonomy can overcome such a huge deficit? It is the Congress which is making efforts to balance the loss,” the Minister said.
 “I have collected water tax of about Rs 1000 Cr from the agencies executing power projects under the newly framed law,” he claimed. “It was Congress that made a law to collect the tax.”
 “We want freedom. Freedom from poverty, under development and hollow slogans,” he added.
 Referring to the lack of development in the Bandipora area, Taj said, “The local representative of the area is busy playing politics rather than raising his voice to get his area developed.”
 “Whenever we invited local legislator to discuss the development of the area, he refused which is the main cause behind the lack of development in the area,” Taj claimed.
 Senior Congress leader and former minister Usman Majeed while addressing the gathering said, “No development has taken place in the district since 2008. Every project was left halfway and nothing new has been done so far to develop the area. Our roads are in shambles, government offices are functioning from rented houses, transport facility has not been initiated for the villages and communication has not been developed as per the need.”
 Alleging huge embezzlement in the release of third installment of funds under Integrated Housing Slum Development Programme (IHSDP), Usman demanded probe into the matter. “Political workers have misused the IHSDP scheme and have fraudently received the cheques while marring the aspirations of needful poor people,” Usman said.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 5 May 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 5 May 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 6 May 2012 00:00:00 IST