Thaindian News

Jammu, Dec 31 (IANS) The Jammu and Kashmir government has said that it has made “great progress in the year 2011″ in various fields like restoring peace, checking corruption, strengthening panchayati raj institutions and overall development, but the opposition Saturday slammed the government for making false claims.

The government’s official spokesman said that addressing the last February-March session of the assembly Chief Minister Omar Abdullah identified two important aspects for focusing in 2011 - restoration of peace in the valley and effective measures against corruption.

“By the year-end, the progress on both the fronts was significant and the coalition government led by Abdullah laid a strong edifice for establishing basic democratic units, empowering these and making people masters of the situation,” he said.

In a release, the spokesman listed achievements of Abdullah’s National Conference and its alliance partner the Congress.

“The measures of far-reaching consequences to restrict corruption and bring about transparency in the functioning of administration, on both physical and financial sectors, were put in place,” he said.

“The constitution of Jammu and Kashmir right to information commission and placement of state chief information commissioner and information commissioners have empowered people,” he said.

The conduct of panchayati elections in the state after a period of over 30 years in a peaceful atmosphere and establishing the panchayat raj was another historic decision and achievement of the coalition government, he said.

The spokesman went on to list about 110 achievements of the government.

Daman Bhasin, leader of opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), however, said: “The government has shamelessly listed many decisions which our party took when it was in power in the state in alliance with the Congress from 2002-08.”

“A major lie was that panchayat elections were held after a gap of 30 years. While the truth is that panchayat elections were held in 2001 when Omar’s father Farooq Abdullah was ruling the state,” Bhasin said.

Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Jatinder Singh said: “It is a blatant lie that powers of over a dozen departments were transferred to panchayats.”

“The fact is that the panchayats elected this year are still powerless while even the Congress - the coalition partner of Abdullah’s National Conference - is fighting hard for delegation of powers to panchayats,” he said.