Kashmir Cultural Centre, Vienna along with SPO (Social Democratic Party) of Austria organised a discussion session on “Socio-Economic development in Kashmir-A people’s perspective” at their Political Academy WBA in Vienna.
The event was inaugurated by Mr. Wolgang Markytan Federal Director of Education of Social Democratic Party of Austria. Mr. Markytan introduced Mr. Naeem Khan, General Secretary of Kashmir Cultural Centre, Vienna and spoke on his keen interest in the region of Kashmir. He mentioned that Mr. Naeem Khan is from Kashmir and has first hand knowledge on the happenings in Kashmir.
Around 15 young members from the SPO and from the academy WBA participated in this discussion. The discussion was mainly conducted in German. Mr. Naeem Khan started the session by playing two videos on Kashmir focusing on the developments in Indian Jammu & Kashmir. These videos highlighted the infrastructural development in Jammu & Kashmir and also on latest initiatives related to women and youth empowerment.
Mr. Naeem Khan presented on statistics by comparing the socio-economic development of people on Indian and Pakistan side of Kashmir. He discussed on the amount of budget allocation and actual spending on various spheres of society and economy on both sides. He highlighted that India spends at least 18 times more their administered side as compared to the amount spent by Pakistan on Pakistan administered Kashmir. He elaborated further that on education, India spends 10 times more than that of Pakistan. He stressed that during the last 3 years, the focus of the Indian government has been fully on socio-economic development of Jammu & Kashmir. Large number of infrastructure projects have been fast tracked to give a strong infrastructural boost to the economy. He also noted that tourism is booming in Jammu & Kashmir and last year J&K has hosted the largest number of tourists in the last two decades and this is growing year on year.
He mentioned that in Pakistan administered Kashmir, the situation is complete opposite. There has no investment on infrastructure development in the last few years. This coupled with widespread corruption and mis-management of funds have pushed inflation to sky-high levels, resulting in significant rise in cost of basic necessities of people. People in Pakistan administered Kashmir has been on streets in large numbers protesting against this mis-management by Government. Further, the status of Kashmiri refugees in Pakistan are even worse as they have no jobs, no support from Government and are living in poor conditions.
The speech by Mr. Naeem Khan was followed by an question-and-answer session wherein participants raised questions on the recent development in Kashmir to Mr. Naeem Khan. It was an interactive discussion. Mr. Wolgang Markytan concluded that SPO has planned to hold more such events on this topic with important participants from different departments of SPO.
