RAMBAN: Union Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh said here today that Congress and National Conference (NC) had deliberately neglected hilly regions and ever since the Modi government took over in 2014, a conscious and painstaking effort is being made to make up for the neglect of the past.Campaigning for the District Development Council election in the upper reaches of district Ramban, Dr. Jitendra Singh said, it was a clear instruction from Prime Minister Narendra Modi that we have to attend the areas and regions which have not received attention in the past, so that they could be lifted and brought at par with the more developed regions. The Special Development Package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave special priority to connectivity, power supply and education in the peripheral regions, he said.Dr. Jitendra Singh expressed regret that from time to time for over half a century, the MLAs and the MPs elected from here held important portfolios as Ministers in the State and the Union Cabinets, but still these hilly remote areas remained grossly undeveloped. He accused the elected representatives in the past of delibrately depriving their own natives from exposure to the outside world and thus letting them remain backward as before.Referring to different pro-poor and public schemes announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Dr. Jitendra Singh said, the distribution of free gas cylinders has been accomplished even in this remote area in the last four years.As for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana(PMAY), he said, the scheme has been initiated even in this peripheral and hilly area and he would persuade the administration to expedite it so that every needy family gets a house of its own before the stipulated timeline.Dr. Jitendra Singh said, in the last three years, the largest allocation of Central Fund for PMGSY roads in rural areas has been granted to Ramban and Doda districts.The target is to connect every village and Panchayat with the main highway and whenever the road construction is in progress, it will be expedited and those road projects which got delayed because of COVID pandemic have been revived to be put on fast track, he added.The work on the rail track from Jammu to Srinagar, said Dr. Jitendra Singh, will complete in next three years and this area will also be on the rail route as the train moves from Reasi via Ramban on its way to the other side of Peer Panjal.
