Srinagar
Indian Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy informed the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Indian parliament, on Sunday that as many as 1.679 million people have been given domicile certificates in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, so far. replying to a written question in the Lok Sabha, Reddy said as per the information provided by the IIOJK administration, a total of 21,13,879 people have applied for domicile certificates.
The minister said as per the registration records maintained with the Provincial Rehabilitation Officer (PRO), IIOJK, a total of 6,565 families were registered as displaced families from the Chhamb Niabat area during the Pakistan-India war of 1971.
For the displaced families of 1971, agricultural land at the rate of 4 acres (irrigated) or 6 acres (un-irrigated) was allotted.
A cash compensation of Rs 7,500 per family was also paid, he said.
In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, in order to speed up the process of issuing domicile certificates, the authorities have now given permission to a Naib Tehsildar in addition to Tehsidar to grant such certificates in the territory.
This has been done by introducing amendment in the Grant of Domicile Certificate (Procedure) Rules, 2020.
In this regard, an official spokesman said, the amendment in Rule 5, Clause 1 authorizes both Tehsildar and Naib Tehsildar for issuing the domicile certificate to Permanent Resident Certificate (PRC) holders and their children, while naming Deputy Commissioner as the appellate authority.
“The applicants of this category (PRC holders) shall have to attach PRC Certificate, while their Children need to attach the PRC of parent and the birth certificate issued by a competent authority,” he added.
Kashmir watchers are of the view that India is doing all this only to expedite the process of granting domicile certificates to non-locals to change the demography of IIOJ&K in the shortest possible period. KMS
