PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti with the CPM’s Sitaram Yechury at the all-party meeting in Srinagar on Sunday. (PTI)

Srinagar, Aug. 10: The all-party delegation to Jammu and Kashmir is considering a proposal to revoke the cabinet orders that allotted land to the Amarnath board and cancelled it subsequently, officials said.

“That means the land will continue to be available for the pilgrimage temporarily as it was used before the cabinet order of May 20, 2008. There is no need to transfer the land to the board,” an official said.

The state cabinet had on May 20 decided to divert 39.88 hectares of land to the Amaranth shrine board for “raising building/structures in the Sindh forest division”.

The order was revoked on July 1 after massive protests in Kashmir. But the cancellation led to protests in Jammu, which are still continuing.

Sources said it was one of the several proposals that were discussed during the two-day visit of the central leaders. “Because of its novelty, this proposal attracted attention of everybody. More so, it was raised by an important central leader,” a source said.

The proposal seeks to resolve the issue in the spirit of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board Act of 2000 and a high court order of 2005. “The act gives responsibility of the pilgrimage to the shrine board and the government is kept out. The high court order had given the user agency (the shrine board) permission to temporarily erect facilities for pilgrims during the duration of the yatra,” the official said.

Other sources cautioned that the proposal would have to be discussed at various levels before it could be crystallised. “It has to be discussed with all the parties involved,” a source said.

The Shri Amarnath Sangarsh Samiti, spearheading the Jammu agitation, said any proposal should match its demand that the land transfer order be restored. “If there is such a proposal on a par with our demands, we will agree when it comes to us in writing,” Samiti convener Lila Karan Sharma told PTI.

March stand-off

Home minister Shivraj Patil’s appeal to Kashmiri traders to call off their march to Muzaffarabad failed to break the deadlock as the central delegation ran into another wall after yesterday’s rebuff from the rival camp.

The PDP, part of the all-party meeting, rubbed more salt into the wounds by saying it would side with the separatists by joining the procession tomorrow to protest the Valley’s economic blockade by Jammu agitators.

In a rebuff to Patil’s plea not to cross the Line of Control, PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti said her party would “fully participate in the march”.

Efforts to enlist the support of the traders and fruit growers against going ahead with their programme also fell flat. While the fruit growers did not turn up to meet the team, an industry body boycotted it.

“We had gone to meet him (Patil) but we left in protest after we were kept waiting outside for too long. We were treated shabbily,” said Meubeen Shah, who heads the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries.