As J&K builds railways and breaks tourism records, PoJK’s people march over power cuts and flour prices
NEW DELHI, August 14: A sweeping comparison of development indicators across the Line of Control has laid bare a widening gap between Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK), with the two regions — sharing the same mountains, the same history and the same cultural roots — now telling radically different stories of governance, infrastructure and economic opportunity. While Jammu and Kashmir records record tourist seasons, landmark railway projects and rising private investment, PoJK’s residents are taking to the streets over unaffordable electricity and flour shortages, with protests met by internet shutdowns and reported casualties.
The infrastructure contrast is the most visible. Jammu and Kashmir has inaugurated the Chenab Rail Bridge — the highest railway arch bridge in the world, at 359 metres above the river — as part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link, a ₹46,000 crore project threading 36 tunnels through mountain terrain to connect the Kashmir Valley to the national rail network for the first time. All-weather tunnels and expanded highways have further reduced the isolation of border communities. In PoJK, there is no functioning railway network; roads in districts such as Rawalakot and Muzaffarabad remain inadequate; and airports operate well below the capacity seen across the divide.
The bitterest irony of life in PoJK, observers say, is the electricity crisis. The region hosts major hydropower installations — including the Mangla and Neelum-Jhelum dams — yet its residents face some of the highest electricity tariffs in the sub-region, unscheduled outages running for hours each day and no benefit from locally generated power, which flows into national grids. This paradox ignited the Joint Awami Action Committee’s mass agitation in 2024, which mobilised tens of thousands of citizens — including large numbers of women and young people — around a 38-point charter demanding cheaper power, subsidised flour and accountable administration. Authorities responded with reported casualties, arrests and communication blackouts. The structural problems remained unresolved.
Economic indicators amplify the divergence. Jammu and Kashmir recorded 2.3 crore tourist arrivals in 2024 and 1.77 crore in 2025, with tourism now contributing roughly seven per cent of regional economic output. Even formerly remote border villages — Gurez, Keran, Lolab Valley — now attract tens of thousands of visitors annually, carrying fresh income to communities long bypassed by development. In PoJK, the scenic Neelum Valley sits largely empty; hotel operators have cut room rates in response to persistently low footfall, and promotional infrastructure is negligible. Jammu and Kashmir also attracted approximately ₹5,824 crore in private investment in 2025-26. In PoJK, youth unemployment remains the loudest complaint in protest charters and daily conversation alike.
The manner in which the two administrations handle public discontent has itself become a measure of governance. In Jammu and Kashmir, civic protests and student demonstrations have generally moved through institutional channels — legal frameworks, regulated policing, administrative engagement. In PoJK, the absence of reliable grievance mechanisms has made sustained street agitation the primary tool of accountability. When a government responds to protests about flour prices with an internet shutdown rather than a policy review, analysts note, it signals an administration that suppresses dissent rather than absorbs it. Journalists and digital creators in Jammu and Kashmir operate in a monitored but functional media environment; PoJK’s protest organisers have had to rely on diaspora networks to communicate with the outside world.
The constitutional changes of August 5, 2019 — which ended Jammu and Kashmir’s distinct arrangement and brought the region into full legal integration with India — remain politically contested. Their governance consequences, however, are increasingly measurable: the extension of national welfare schemes to previously excluded residents, the strengthening of Panchayati Raj institutions and grassroots democratic participation, the expansion of women’s property and inheritance rights, and wider access to central programmes in healthcare, housing and education. On the ground, the post-2019 framework has meant new institutions of national importance, expanded medical infrastructure and growing digital connectivity reaching communities that had long been excluded from such provision.
The comparison, analysts stress, is not about geography or natural endowment — both regions possess the same mountains, rivers and scenic valleys. It is about what governance does with those assets. PoJK generates hydropower but exports the benefit; Jammu and Kashmir builds railways that its own people ride. The people on both sides of the Line of Control, the reports note with consistent emphasis, want the same things: affordable electricity, jobs for their children, roads that do not wash away in the monsoon and a reliable mechanism for making their voices heard. The difference is entirely in whether their governments deliver. By that measure, and it is the only measure that finally counts, the two Kashmirs are moving in opposite directions.
