The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Tuesday said the new domicile certificate under the Decentralisation Act was for applying for jobs while separate rules will be needed for conferring rights to own land in the union territory. “The domicile certificate is for applying for jobs in Jammu and Kashmir…It does not confer right to buy land at the moment,” Principal Secretary Revenue Pawan Kotwal told reporters here. Separate rules will be needed to cover the issue of land rights, he added. Kotwal was accompanied by government spokesman Rohit Kansal at the press conference. Kansal said the government has so far issued more than 12.5 lakh domicile certificates. “More than 99 per cent of the domicile certificates have been issued to those who already had the erstwhile Permanent Resident Certificate,” he said. Kansal said the administration has reduced the time frame for issuance of domicile certificates for PRC holders from 15 days to just five days. “Holding a PRC is enough to get a domicile certificate. There would not be any further verification. This will accelerate the process,” he added. Asked about the fake PRCs issued in the past, he said there were separate provisions of laws that deal with that aspect. Kansal said while 11,000 West Pakistan refugees and 12,000 migrants had been issued domicile certificates, around 415 members of the Valmiki community and 10 from the Gurkha community have availed the document. Kotwal said there were 17 lakh applications and 4.3 lakh are pending as of now. “We have rejected 20,000 applications as well,” he added.
