Jammu: A day after the Union Home Minister Amit Shah approved the revival of Village Defence Committees (VDCs), rechristened as Village Defence Groups (VDGs), the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Wednesday issued a slew of instructions to J&K government on the “revised scheme”, including the honorarium of their (VDGs’) members.
However, the MHA has made it clear that the “revised scheme of Village Defence Guards” will be made effective only after apprising the High Court.
As reported by Greater Kashmir in its today’s edition, the Union Home Minister on Tuesday evening had directed his ministry officials to prepare “proper proposal regarding the salaries of their (VDCs’) unpaid members.”
In a communiqué to the J&K Chief Secretary, the Under Secretary to the Government of India MHA Department of Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh Affairs Ipsita S Paul has stated that the members of the Village Defence Group will be designated as Village Defence Guard (VDG).
“In more vulnerable areas, persons (V1 category) who shall be leading or coordinating the VDG would be paid Rs 4500 per month and other persons (V2 category) who are members of these VDGs on voluntary basis will be paid a uniform rate Rs 4000 per month. VDGs will function under the direction of SP or SSP of the concerned district,” Paul said.
Referring to letter No Home-NGiv/76/2021-10-(CC53282) dated January 9, 2021, Paul stated that these decisions have been taken after the issue has been examined by the Ministry (MHA) and have been “issued with the approval of the competent authority.”
“In case of vacancy, the decision to fill up the same will be taken later,” she stated.
Shah’s directions to MHA officials vis-a-vis “salary proposals of VDC members” came after a delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from J&K, during its meeting with him in the union capital last evening, had urged him to “fully revive anti-terror VDCs”. The delegation, led by party’s Kashmir incharge Sunil Sharma, had met the Union Home Minister to discuss issues related to VDCs and DDCs.
Earlier this afternoon, Sharma, in a press conference in Jammu, had shared that despite the important role played by VDCs, their salary distribution system was not streamlined as the salary from SPOs were distributed among all the members. He further said that two years back, SPOs got the order from court as a result of which they were not bound to distribute salary and so the remaining members of VDCs were left without any salary.
“Till now many VDCs have been non functional or disbanded. Many VDC members have submitted their resignations and deposited weapons. They did so to be enrolled for availing the benefits under BPL category,” he said.
Village Defence Committees (VDCs) were first set up in the mid-1990s in the Chenab valley area of Jammu and Kashmir for the self-defence of minority communities in remote hilly villages amid surge of militancy there. These committees consisted of villagers as well as police officers.