Kashmir has more ration card poor than Jammu, yet gets about a tenth of EWS certificates. Jammu and Kashmir must adopt a single, verified list of the poor for welfare and for jobs.
A poor family should be poor everywhere. In Jammu and Kashmir, it is not. The same household can be poor enough for free ration and too rich for a job quota. That is not policy. It is a contradiction.
The numbers expose it. Over two years, Jammu division received 24,058 EWS certificates. Kashmir division received 2,486. Yet Kashmir has more households on subsidised ration than Jammu. Lawmakers cite over 37 lakh in Kashmir against about 29 lakh in Jammu. The government’s own records show it. Poverty does not explain the gap. The test does.
The ration card asks who needs food. The EWS certificate asks about income and assets. It checks flats, plots and farmland. A Kashmiri family in a modest house of its own may fail the asset test. A family in a rented flat in the plains may pass. Housing patterns differ between regions. A test built on property cannot treat them alike.
The cost is real. Of about 750 EWS recruitments, 690 went to Jammu and 60 to Kashmir, according to Sajad Lone. On a ration card test, he argues, the split would be 412 and 337. Around 40,000 posts lie vacant. Each hiring round will repeat the imbalance unless the yardstick changes.
The government’s reply is procedural. It says the rules follow the central standard. It says no change is planned. A Cabinet report on reservation sits with the competent authority. No date has been given. Meanwhile, young people wait. Vacancies stay open. Applicants age out. Trust in the system erodes with every cycle.
The central framework does not demand this confusion. The constitutional amendment lets states provide up to 10 per cent reservation. It leaves the method to them. Other states have adapted their tests to local conditions. Jammu and Kashmir can do the same.
What is needed is simple. One list of the poor. Built once, verified openly and updated regularly. Every scheme should draw from it. Ration, health cover, scholarships, housing and job quotas. A household on the list should not prove poverty again to each department. A household off the list should have a clear way to challenge.
A single list also brings honesty. Today each department sets its own bar. Each bar can be defended in isolation. Together they make little sense. One list forces one answer to one question. Who is poor? Officials would no longer argue over whose definition applies. It also makes errors visible, so they can be fixed.
This is not a demand against Jammu. A single list protects the poor of both regions. Fairness means the same test for every household. The government should stop defending the old yardsticks. It should build one list and use it everywhere.
