Cabinet meet to decide on vacancies in key departments

Samaan Lateef

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, October 20

The last Cabinet meeting of the J&K Government in summer capital Srinagar this year will be held on Monday. It is likely to take a decision on filling the vacancies of the heads of several key departments. “We are meeting for the last time this year here on Monday evening to appoint commissioner secretaries of various headless departments,” a senior Cabinet minister told The Tribune.

The Revenue, Tourism, Information, and Science and Technology Departments are headless. This is creating an inconvenience to the people ahead of the closure of the civil secretariat here on October 27 for the next six months.

With the retirement of Commissioner Secretary Muhammad Hussain Malik on September 30, the three important departments such as Tourism, Information and Floriculture, Parks and Gardens have become headless. Notably, the state government is spending a huge money to lure tourists from across the world to the state. Similarly, with the retirement of Commissioner Secretary Muhammad Ashraf Mir on October 11, Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation, Disaster Management, and Science and Technology Departments do not have a head.

Apart from these, the state government has given additional charge to several officers to run other key departments. The state government carved out an independent RRRDM Department from the Revenue Department in 2015 to expedite the reconstruction process and relief measures post-2014 deluge. However, since then, it is yet to take up any major work.