FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO FAMILIES OF WEST PAKISTANI REFUGEES (WPRs)
- West Pakistani Refugees (WPRs) are those who migrated from areas in the West Pakistan in the wake of partition in the year 1947 and settled in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir, mainly in Jammu, Kathua and Rajouri districts of Jammu Division. The 5,764 migrated families were not treated as Permanent Residents of the then State by the Government of Jammu & Kashmir. Though the WPRs are citizens of India and have the right to vote in parliamentary elections, they did not have the right to vote in the assembly and local body elections. They did not have the right to purchase property in the then State. The children of these WPRs could not take admission in the technical and professional institutions of J&K.
- In order to reduce the hardships of WPRs, the Ministry of Home Affairs approved a rehabilitation package similar to the package implemented for the displaced persons families of POJK (1947) & Chhamb (1965 &1971). The objective was to enable the WPR families living in J&K to run small business/self-employment venture or which can provide the families some assured and sustained earnings. Accordingly, the scheme for providing one-time financial assistance of ₹5.5 lakh per family to the 5764 WPR families with a total outlay of ₹317.02 crore was implemented on 13.06.2018 with the approval of the Standing Finance Committee (SFC).
- The Government of J&K collects details of eligible WPR beneficiaries, authenticates them and up-loads the details in the PFMS module. Subsequently, financial assistance is disbursed by the Ministry of Home Affairs into the Aadhaar-linked bank accounts of these beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode.
- The time-line of the scheme was 31.03.2021. Due to non-receipt of authenticated proposals from the Govt. of J&K, there was no disbursement of financial assistance during the years 2018-19 and 2019-20. Hence, with the SFC approval, the scheme was extended up to 31.03.2024 and further extended up to 31.03.2026 within the outlay ₹317.02 crore. The year-wise disbursements since inception of the scheme are as under: -
(Amount in ₹)
| Year | Total Allocation | Total Disbursement | No. of Beneficiaries covered |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | Nil | 0.00 | Nil |
| 2019-20 | Nil | 0.00 | Nil |
| 2020-21 | 2,82,00,000 | 2,81,73,750.00 | 102 |
| 2021-22 | 45,00,00,000 | 11,69,71,251.00 | 314 |
| 2022-23 | 33,11,00,000 | 33,10,89,179.00 | 991 |
| 2023-24 | 35,00,00,000 | 34,99,99,222.00 | 1830 |
| 2024-25 | 43,53,00,000 | 23,96,39,245.00 | 1,305 |
| 2025-26 | 10,65,00,000 | 10,64,34,197 | 572 |
| Total | 117,23,06,844 | 5,114 |
The scheme has been extended within the approved outlay for a period of one year i.e. 31.03.2027 within the outlay ₹317.02 cr.