Advisior to Lieutenant Governor, Farooq Khan chaired review meetings of Tribal Affairs and Hajj &Auqaf Departments here today. The meetings were attended by Secretary Tribal Affairs, Hajj and Auqaf, Abdul Majeed Bhat; Director Tribal Affairs, Mushtaq Ahmed; Officers of Hajj and Auqaf and other officials. Earlier, while addressing the review meeting of Tribal Affairs, the Advisor directed the officials to prepare a list of wardens and assistant wardens besides the hostels without wardens so that adequate man power would be ensured for smooth working of hostels. Reviewing status of ongoing construction works of the Tribal Affairs Department, Advisor Khan called for speeding up all the projects for timely completion. He asked the department to come up with a proposal for creation of a separate engineering wing for the department to execute works more efficiently. He stressed on outsourcing for maintenance of buildings in order to maintain standard practices of housekeeping and dietary. The Advisor was informed that several activities are being undertaken under Special Central Assistance to Sub Tribal Schemes like development of Cluster Tribal Model Villages, establishment of Milk Villages and Milk Chilling Plants, construction of PHCs/CHCs in tribal areas besides providing adequate power supply, rural infrastructure and other requisite facilities to improve living conditions of nomadic families. Advisor Khan said the aim of developing Cluster Tribal Model Village is to provide enhanced basic amenities to ST population with emphasis on education, health, skill development, horticulture, agriculture, tourism etc. The meeting was told that the department is developing Milk Villages with an estimated cost of Rs. 4 crore on equal share both by JK government and the central government in tribal areas for promoting best practices in milk production. Regarding construction of Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS), the meeting was informed that four EMRS are under construction at Anantnag, Kulgam, Rajouri & Poonch, being established with an aim to provide lodging, boarding and education to 480 tribal students in the ratio of 50:50 between Boys and Girls, free of cost. It was also given out that in order to provide residential facilities to ST/G&B students of far flung areas at district level, the department is constructing ST/G&B Hostels for boys and girls in various districts. Besides, 79 new ST hostels have been proposed under Prime Minister’s Investment Package (PMIP) during 2019-20 for UT of J&K. Meanwhile, in another review meeting of Hajj and Auqaf, several issues related to the functioning of the department were discussed and deliberated upon like implementation of the Central Act regarding functioning of Wakf Board in newly created Union Territory.
