Foreign diplomats visit J&K: Budgam’s DDC Chairman says, 'discussions on UT's development'

Nazir Ahmad Khan, the DDC Chairman of Budgam district on Wednesday stated that the issues of development were discussed with the group of 24 foreign envoys, who are currently on a two-day visit to the Union Territory. After the abrogation of Article 370, the foreign guests have visited the valley for the fourth time. The delegation consists mainly of foreign diplomats from African, Middle-East and European countries.

'Discussions on J&K's development'

In an official statement, Nazir Khan said, "It’s been a month since we assumed our posts and we received the opportunity to interact with a foreign delegation. We interacted about our development schemes, work done and work which remains to be done. The discussions revolved around development work only. We held talks mainly on roti (food), kapda (cloth), makaan (house), sadak (road), bijli (electricity) and paani (water) because the region is poor and lacks literacy."

Members of the delegation will meet several stakeholders, including newly elected members of District Development Councils (DDC), social and political activists, editors of some newspapers, civil administration officials and army personnel. On the first day of their visit, the envoys also interacted with the Srinagar Mayor, DDC chairpersons, chairpersons of Block Development Councils, Municipal Council from all parties and locals in the Magam block of Budgam district. 

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The 25-member delegation visited J-K

Foreign diplomats from Chile, Brazil, Cuba, Bolivia, Italy, Bangladesh, Malawi, Eritrea, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Tajikistan, Estonia, Finland, France, Senegal, Malaysia, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Kyrgyzstan and the European Union are on the visit. This will be the first visit by foreign diplomats to Jammu and Kashmir since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier, the delegation of European countries made a two-day visit to Kashmir in October 2019. After that, on January 9 last year, 16 foreign diplomats including the US Ambassador to New Delhi visited the Union Territory. A 25-member delegation of foreign diplomats also visited Kashmir on February 12, 2020.

The visit of foreign diplomats after the recent elections of DDC at the district level in Jammu and Kashmir is seen as a big opportunity to show the changes made after the removal of Sections 370 and 35A in August 2019.  The restoration of 4G mobile internet in the entire region after 18 months is observed as a return of full normalcy.

(with inputs from ANI)

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