Civil Secretariat staff protest, oppose Durbar Move to Srinagar
Amit Khajuria
Tribune News Service
Jammu, June 4
As the state government has decided to shift the Civil Secretariat and Durbar Move offices to Srinagar, Jammu-based employees today staged a protest on the premises of the Civil Secretariat against the shifting amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Souces said the UT Administration was preparing to shift the Civil Secretariat, which was kept on hold due to Covid-19, in the next couple of days.
After getting the information of shifting, the Jammu-based employees gathered on the lawns of the Civil Secretariat and staged a protest against the shifting, saying this poses a risk risk to their lives due to the surge in the coronavirus cases in Kashmir valley.
“It will be a disastrous move if the authorities shift the Civil Secretariat to Srinagar at this time. If a top-level bureaucrat, who recently visited Srinagar tested positive, how safe are the employees?” said an employee.
According to the sources, the UT Administration is all set to finalise the Civil Secretariat move in the Administrative Council (AC) which is scheduled to be held on Saturday.
“The administration is taking high risk by shifting the Secretariat, as they have to invite labour in the Jammu Secretariat to pack and load the files and other important things and later in the Srinagar Secretariat they will have to do the same to unload and unpack the files,” the employee said adding “This time they are not shifting the secretariat but shifting the virus from one place to another.”
The 148-year-old tradition of moving the capital of the region twice a year — from Srinagar to Jammu during winter and back to Jammu in summer — was postponed for the first time in its history. The exercise was delayed in view of the lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
On May 5, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had asked the decision makers, including the Centre, to look into the necessity of the 148-year-old biannual Darbar move, keeping in mind the financial implication of more than Rs 200 crore incurred by the “hopelessly fiscally deprived Union Territory”.
