government is making great efforts to improve economy and lifestyle of the people in the ladakh
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The Ladakh region has held great geostrategic importance down history. Yet, it has received stepmotherly treatment from the now-suspended Jammu & Kashmir government, despite occupying some 60% of the erstwhile state’s geographical area.
The passes of Ladakh connect Central Asia, South Asia and China, and the region is cut off from the rest of India for six months during winter.
The tribes here have limited means of livelihood, poor roads, impossible telecom and internet connectivity, undeveloped markets for their produce and low employment opportunities. The proximity of the India-Pakistan-China border, and the ubiquitous presence of Indian Army and paramilitary forces, underlines not only Ladakh’s strategic sensitivity, but also its people’s vulnerability.
Hopefully, with the Modi government revoking J&K’s special status and making Ladakh a separate Union territory (UT), this historic and continuing wrong will now be corrected.
Tribes constitute 90% of the population of Ladakh — made up of the districts of Leh and Kargil. Gujjars, Bakarwals, Bots, Changpas, Baltis and Purigpas have played an important role in various wars that have been fought, and have been displaced and disturbed by border tensions.
Within J&K’s budget, Ladakh usually got the short shrift. Fund transfer was usually delayed — by which time, the construction season was over. Devolution of tribal development funds (TDPs) was based primarily on population, and didn’t take into consideration area and geographical spread, relative inaccessibility, relative backwardness, and the presence and demography of nomadic tribes. As a result, development of this region has been generally neglected.
Ladakh’s terrain is essentially inhospitable to agriculture and has been badly neglected by government agencies. In the apricot cluster of Kargil — which accounts for about half of J&K’s total apricot plantation —the crop has been annually afflicted by the codling moth for a decade. No solution for this blight has been sought yet.