Jammu, Oct. 24: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to announce a Rs 3,000-crore package for Jammu and Kashmir when he visits the state next month.

He would announce the package at a rally in Srinagar, a source told The Telegraph.

Chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who was recently in Delhi to chalk out the final programme of the Prime Minister?s visit that has been postponed thrice since August, had pressed hard for an economic package for the state.

The package, the sources said, would encompass the familiar themes of development, reconstruction and opening of new employment opportunities for the youth, whose accumulated frustration is one of the biggest areas of concern in the state.

Most of the unemployed youth in the past had taken up guns and sustained militancy that is still eating away the social and economic vitals of Jammu and Kashmir.

Observers are keenly watching what a Congress Prime Minister would offer to the state where his party is a partner in the ruling coalition.

In the winter of 1986, the state,ruled by the National Conference-Congress alliance, was showered with sops by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

It is almost a practice with Prime Ministers visiting Jammu and Kashmir to announce packages to publicly demonstrate and underline the Union government?s concern for the economic well-being of the state convulsed by terrorist violence for the past 15 years.

The economic measures are also seen as part of the government?s plans to draw political mileage.

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had announced two sets of packages during his visits to the state. But the packages have been implemented more in breach, thus breeding scepticism and frustration among the people.

One of the highlights of Vajpayee?s package was over 100,000 jobs for the unemployed youth in the state.

?These have remained far from being realised,? said a senior official who feels that announcements of packages only make official files heavier and burdensome without any concrete results on the ground.