Calling the extension of Collection of Statistics Amendment Bill-2017 to Jammu and Kashmir as a “deceitful ploy to erode state’s autonomy”, Kashmir’s civil society and business community on Thursday said the PDP-BJP government is “not leaving any stone unturned to fulfill RSS agenda.”
A day after the Bill that will empower the government of India to directly collect data from J&K was passed by Rajya Sabha “without taking state legislature into confidence”, the civil society members and business community unanimously called the move as “another nail in the coffin of state’s special status.”
“It is a ploy directed at Nagpur by RSS and implemented by BJP and BJP to take away our special status,” said chairman, Kashmir Economic Alliance, Muhammad Yaseen Khan.
The state government claims that the state legislature has special powers but here they are not even consulted and the bill is passed by BJP-led government at the Centre, Khan said, adding that this bill is “another deceit” after implementation of Goods and Services Tax regime “which eroded the special status.”
Member of civil society formation Kashmir Centre for Social and Development Studies, Shakeel Qalander, said the extension of Statistics Amendment Bill to J&K is a “direct attack on state’s residual powers.”
“We don’t know what mischief they are trying to play, but the passage of this bill will make a ground for them and you don’t know to what extent they would use this bill to weaken our special status,” Qalander said, adding that “earlier collection of data was in concurrent list, but now without informing anybody, they have extended the bill to J&K with a malafide intent.”
President, Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Mushtaq Ahmad Wani said this is a “dangerous trend being followed by the government: of silently pushing laws onto us to jeopardise our special status.”
“We saw it with GST how they forced it upon us by arresting business leaders and now this law of allowing central government to collect data is another thing being done,” he said.
President, Kashmir Traders and Manufacturers Federation, Bashir Ahmad Rather said the PDP, for power, is “bartering” the special status of J&K. “First they did it with GST and now Statistics Collection Bill (2017),” he said.
Co-chairman of Kashmir Economic Alliance, Farooq Ahmad Rather, said PDP is responsible for “all the mess.”
“It is their responsibility to halt such moves, but instead of preventing dilution of special status, they (PDP) are abetting it,” he said.
According to the statement of objects and reason of the Bill, “the amendments proposed in the bill, inter alia, seek to extend the Statistics Act 2008, to the state of Jammu and Kashmir insofar as it relates to any statistical survey relating to any matter falling under any of the entries specified in List I (Union List) or List III (Concurrent List) in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution as applicable to that state.” It will empower the central government and each state government to designate one of its nodal officers as nodal officer to coordinate and supervise the statistical activities and to exercise such other powers and perform such other duties as may be made by the rules.
