'15 years or less', MHA framing rules to protect domicile rights in J-K

Ground Report | New Delhi

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is finalising a proposal regarding the framing of rules to protect domicile rights in the newly formed union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and examining the number of years required to live in JK to get domicile status.

Reports claimed that the Home Ministry in consultation with the LG led Jammu and Kashmir government were finalising a proposal regarding rules but were yet to decide the number of years required to live in JK to get domicile status. “It is not clear yet whether it will be 15 years or less required to get domicile status. But the MHA is working on it and soon will finalize the residency norms".

According to local news agency KNS, once the government will finalise the rules of domicile status, locals and people who lived in Jammu and Kashmir for a long time will be able to get benefits of different schemes from jobs to land purchases.

The government was considering the special arrangement on the lines of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Sources added that a domicile certificate could be important for government jobs, ownership of land, and seats in professional and college education in J&K.

However, sources said that the residency norm may not be applicable for industrial houses to buy land for setting up business ventures and construct quarters for their employees. There is a possibility of providing relaxation to central government employees, who are from other parts of the country but have been living in the two UTs for the last five years or more.

Also, central officials and their children, and students who are from other states but may have cleared their Class X or Class XII board exams in Jammu and Kashmir or Ladakh may be given residency.

It is to mention here that Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday assured the people of the Union Territory that a domicile law would be coming “very soon”, following which the Land Act would also be implemented.

He also announced that more than the promised jobs would be provided to the youth after the notification of the rules is worked out.

“The Domicile Act is coming very soon, which will be immediately followed by the Land Act,” the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office said. Jatinder Singh had further said: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been saying again and again that we should have the same kind of focus on Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as we did for the northeast, which has seen a major transformation over the last five years. Those who have doubts about it will see all this happening in a short while".

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