936 Flats at Zewan, 36 Years of Displacement: Can a Housing Complex Bring Kashmiri Pandits Home?

There are photographs that governments like to preserve. The ribbon has been cut, the dignitaries have assembled, the buildings stand completed against the mountains, and an official speaks with satisfaction about a promise fulfilled. On Sunday, 1 November 2026, Zewan on the outskirts of Srinagar supplied just such a moment. Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha inaugurated a residential complex built for Kashmiri migrant employees appointed under the Prime Minister's Package, while Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Akshay Labroo described the completion as a memorable achievement of his tenure.

There is good reason for the administration to celebrate. The Zewan complex comprises 936 flats in 39 residential blocks, making it the largest development under the current programme. Two other complexes, at Kulangam Bagh in Kupwara and Kakan Maran in Budgam, were inaugurated through virtual participation. Together, the three developments account for 1,416 flats. The government says that all 936 units at Zewan have been allotted.

But Zewan is not merely another government housing project. Its residents belong to a community whose displacement began more than three decades ago, whose return has been promised by successive governments, and whose confidence in the Valley has repeatedly been shaken by violence. The significance of these flats cannot be understood through the number of buildings alone. They must be examined against the circumstances that made such housing necessary.

The mass departure of Kashmiri Pandits during the insurgency and targeted violence of the late 1980s and early 1990s remains one of the most painful chapters in Kashmir's contemporary history. Families abandoned homes, businesses, neighbourhoods, temples and ancestral properties. Many settled in Jammu, others in Delhi and elsewhere. For those who were children when their families left, Kashmir became a place inherited through the recollections of parents and grandparents rather than through ordinary experience.

In November 2015, the Union Cabinet approved a rehabilitation initiative involving 3,000 additional government jobs and 6,000 transit accommodation units for Kashmiri migrants in the Valley. The package carried an estimated expenditure of ₹2,000 crore, including ₹920 crore for accommodation and ₹1,080 crore for employment. It supplemented the rehabilitation measures announced in 2008.

The intention was straightforward. Employment would give members of displaced families a reason to work in Kashmir, while government-supported housing would help them live there. Yet the difference between creating an employment opportunity and making it possible for an employee to live securely with a family would become a central difficulty.

For years, the accommodation programme advanced unevenly. Construction, allotment, infrastructure and security arrangements did not always proceed together. Some employees were required to work in the Valley while suitable housing remained unavailable. The problem was not theoretical. It affected where they could live, how far they travelled to work and whether their families felt comfortable joining them.

The Zewan development itself illustrates the long administrative journey. In February 2024, the district administration was reviewing construction across its 39 blocks. In September 2025, Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo inspected the project and was informed that 624 of its 936 one-bedroom flats had been completed, with another 312 at different stages of execution. At that time, 703 units had been allotted.

The same review placed the revised approved cost of the Zewan project at ₹197.37 crore. Expenditure of ₹124.07 crore had been reported up to March 2025, while the balance was proposed for the 2025–26 financial year.

Those figures are important. The original nationwide discussion of the 2015 rehabilitation package commonly referred to ₹920 crore for 6,000 transit units. By September 2025, the reported revised outlay for the Valley-wide accommodation programme had risen to ₹1,245.38 crore, with additional Union Territory support bringing the total funding provision, including allied works, to approximately ₹1,325.85 crore.

This does not establish financial wrongdoing. Large construction programmes can undergo legitimate cost revisions as specifications, land development, infrastructure and execution requirements change. It does, however, establish a public-interest obligation to explain those revisions clearly. The administration should publish the original and revised estimates, actual expenditure, contract variations, outstanding liabilities and final completion costs.

In May 2026, Deputy Commissioner Labroo again inspected Zewan. By then, 33 blocks had reportedly been completed and finishing work continued on six others. Officials reported that boundary walls, security pickets, internal roads, a community hall, power infrastructure and water supply arrangements had been developed. Ten lifts had been commissioned, while installation work in additional blocks was being expedited.

These details reveal why the distinction between construction and habitation matters. A completed flat is not necessarily a functioning home. Reliable electricity, drinking water, sewage disposal, lift maintenance, access roads, security, transport and the ability to obtain timely repairs determine whether a residential complex can support everyday family life.

The inauguration on 1 November therefore marks an important administrative milestone, but it does not by itself establish that every allotted family has taken possession, moved in or begun living there permanently.

The latest government figures place the wider programme at 6,000 flats in 342 blocks across 20 locations in the Valley's ten districts. Officials reported that more than 5,200 flats had been completed and over 3,800 allotted by the time of Sunday's inauguration. The remaining units are expected to be completed by December 2026, according to the assurance given by Additional Chief Secretary Anil Kumar Singh.

The progression is substantial. In December 2025, an Assembly reply had placed completed units at 4,096, with 3,250 allotted. By March 2026, a divisional review reported 4,112 completed and 3,257 allotted. The latest announcement therefore represents a significant acceleration in reported completion and allotment.

It is also necessary to understand that allotment is an administrative status, not a measure of actual occupancy. A beneficiary may have received an allotment letter but still be awaiting physical possession, utility connections, repairs or a decision about moving the family. Without a publicly available occupancy report, the number of households actually residing in the completed complexes cannot be established from Sunday's figures.

This is a distinction The Continental considers essential.

The question of security remains even more consequential. In May 2022, Rahul Bhat, a Kashmiri Pandit government employee appointed under the Prime Minister's employment programme, was shot dead at his office in Budgam. His killing triggered protests and renewed demands for protection and relocation among employees who feared that their jobs had placed them in danger.

Contemporary reporting indicated that many PM Package employees were living outside designated secure accommodation and travelling to workplaces without adequate protection. The government subsequently described a series of security measures, including patrolling, intelligence operations and protection around residential areas.

A housing complex with boundary walls and security arrangements may address some vulnerabilities. It cannot, by itself, remove every danger associated with commuting, working in public offices or living in an environment where targeted violence has previously occurred.

Nor can a secure residential enclave resolve the entire question of return.

The larger issue concerns the meaning of rehabilitation. The families displaced from Kashmir did not merely lose access to government accommodation. Many lost privately owned homes, inherited land, businesses, livelihoods and social connections. Some properties have changed hands. Others have deteriorated or become the subject of disputes. The generation that left Kashmir in 1990 is ageing, while younger descendants may have established their lives elsewhere.

The 6,000 transit flats are specifically intended for eligible migrant government employees. They are not a general housing settlement for every displaced Kashmiri Pandit family, and they should not be represented as one.

This limitation is fundamental to an accurate understanding of the programme. A government employee who receives accommodation near a workplace has gained something meaningful. A displaced family with no member employed under the package may remain entirely outside the arrangement. A family seeking restoration of ancestral property faces a different set of questions. And a person who wishes to return permanently must consider education, healthcare, livelihood, neighbourhood relationships and long-term security beyond the period of government service.

The government has repeatedly described the return of Kashmiri Pandits as a matter of cultural restoration and human dignity. Lieutenant Governor Sinha reiterated that sentiment at Sunday's inauguration, observing that the Valley's cultural and spiritual inheritance could not be considered complete without the community's contribution.

There is historical substance behind that argument. Kashmiri Pandits have made enduring contributions to the region's literature, scholarship, administration, philosophy and religious traditions. Their displacement was a loss to the families concerned and to the wider society from which they were uprooted.

But a genuinely dignified return cannot be measured only by how many members of a displaced community are accommodated in designated residential compounds. Its deeper measure would be whether families can eventually live with security, freedom and ordinary social confidence among the wider population.

This requires more than construction contracts. It requires sustained public administration, credible policing, opportunities for employment, protection of property rights, functioning public services and a social environment in which the prospect of returning does not itself become a source of anxiety.

At Zewan, there is also a question of accountability for the future. The administration should disclose how the 936 units have been allocated, how many allotment holders have taken possession, how many flats are occupied, what maintenance arrangements have been established and which department will be responsible for addressing residents' complaints.

The revised project cost deserves a final audited explanation. So do the remaining construction and infrastructure works. The public should know whether every lift is functional, whether water and electricity supplies are reliable, and whether the promised security arrangements are operational rather than merely provided for in construction plans.

These are questions arising from the available record. They are not allegations that the administration has failed to provide these facilities.

Deputy Commissioner Akshay Labroo has reason to regard the inauguration as an achievement. His administration supervised the closing stages of a major residential development, and the photographs show a substantial physical asset that did not exist in completed form a few years ago. Recognition is also due to the engineers, construction workers, departments and public officials who brought the project to this stage.

Yet the larger responsibility cannot end with a ceremonial handover.

A family entering a flat at Zewan will not judge the government by the speeches delivered at its inauguration. It will judge the project by whether the water runs, the electricity remains available, the children can travel safely, the lift works, complaints are addressed and the residents can live without constant fear.

For a displaced Kashmiri Pandit family, there is another question beyond these practical concerns. Can the place where a person works become the place where that person once again feels at home?

The administration has delivered an important part of the physical infrastructure required to make that possibility real. It has not thereby resolved the full historical burden of displacement, nor would it be fair to expect one housing programme to accomplish that.

The real achievement at Zewan will be established over the coming years, when the inauguration photographs have disappeared from official timelines and the buildings are occupied by families living their ordinary lives.

Thirty-six years after the beginning of the Kashmiri Pandit exodus, 936 flats are a measurable development. Whether they become an enduring instrument of return will depend on what happens after the keys are handed over.

For Kashmir, that is the difference between completing a project and beginning to repair a history.