JAMMU: Indicating a thaw in the government's stance on relocation of under-threat Kashmiri Pandit employees from the valley, Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday said it is better to save a human life even if it means closing down a dozen offices.
He also hit out at the opposition parties accusing them of following the policy of appeasement to the extent of being "inhuman".
He alleged that these parties not only discriminated between people but also went to the extent of discriminating between Line of Control and International Border purely for vote considerations.
"This should be addressed amicably and with sensitivity. My personal opinion is that nothing can be more valuable than a human life," the minister told reporters in Kathua.
"If there is a threat even to one life, it is better to save that life even if it means closing down a dozen offices." Singh was in Kathua to lay the foundation stone of central PMGSY road from Bakhta to Magloor in Jalota area.
Addressing a public rally after the ceremony, Singh said the previous governments headed by opposition parties crossed all limits of ethics and propriety when they allowed reservation for people living along LoC but denied the same benefits to the people living along the IB.
"They did so because their MLAs were elected from the areas along the LoC, some of whom also became the ministers. They denied the same benefit to the people living along IB or on the Pakistan border, mostly in Kathua and Samba districts, because the people here did not vote for them," the Union minister said.
He said this discrepancy was corrected only after the Modi government came to power when the people living near the IB were given justice with the grant of four per cent reservation, the same as people living along LoC.
Singh also said the government was making efforts to set up a satellite hospital and Tata Cancer Centre in Kathua.
"This will provide the latest hi-tech facility for cancer patients from J&K, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh."
On Keedian Gandyal bridge, he said it was not constructed over the last 70 years because it would have benefitted mere 2,000 people, but "we had the courage and conviction to construct a bridge for these people at a cost of over Rs 150 Crore".
Along the route of the holy Machil Yatra before 2014 there were neither toilets, nor mobile connectivity, nor electricity because these people did not figure in their list of the vote bank, he said.
"It is this government which set up toilets and mobile towers there and recently sanctioned one exclusive solar power plant for the village," he added.
Referring to one of the first Industrial Biotech Parks which has been set up in Kathua, Singh said people will realise its worth over a period of time.
He said that due to the Modi government the Shahpur Kandi project was revived after 40 years, and the Ujh multipurpose irrigation project, which was conceived for the first-time during Maharaja's rule, is also scheduled to take off very soon.