Tuesday 21st Jan, 2025
The call for bandh came a day after state BJP president Sat Sharma said that a few complaints from certain sections to the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh during his recent Jammu visit does not matter.
The Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a main body of traders and industrialists across the region, on Saturday gave a call for Jammu bandh on September 18 so as to express resentment against the “unaccountable” and “insincere” working of majority of ministers in the PDP-BJP coalition government.
The call for bandh came a day after state BJP president Sat Sharma said that a few complaints from certain sections to the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh during his recent Jammu visit does not matter. “It speaks volumes about the intentions and integrity of their working,” said Chamber president Rakesh Gupta, adding that after communicating their grievances to the Home Minister, they, however, had expected that the state BJP shall rise to the occasion and start working in a positive manner.
He threatened to give a call for indefinite Jammu bandh after Navratras, if genuine demands of the people in the region were not fulfilled. The demands, he said, included abolition of toll tax being charged by state government on goods at Lakhanpur and industry in the state be incentivized as state revenue has increase multi fold after implementation of GST as part of one nation-one tax regime.
The Chamber president expressed dissatisfaction over the slow pace of acquisition of land for the construction of AIIMS at Vijaypur in Samba district. Pointing out that AIIMS had been sanctioned almost two years ago, he asked as to why government instead of initiating due process of law to evict few people illegally occupying some portion of the land identified for AIIMS was conducting negotiations with them.
The other demands included re-looking into the revised Master Plan for Jammu, high level enquiry into frequent power cuts especially when government has spent thousands of crores on rebuilding and redesigning the power infrastructure in the state, declaration of state holiday on the birth anniversary of Maharaja Hari Singh which falls on September 23, besides deportation of Rohingyas from Jammu to outside the state.