Durbar move, yet no move in J&K

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 11

In the nearly 150-year-old history of the Durbar move, it is for the first time that the government would be sitting at two places, separated by 300 km from each other. It has posed serious questions about governance, with the government split between summer and winter capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar.

This is a complete departure from the original practice of the Secretariat functioning in Srinagar during summer months, and Jammu hosting it for winter months. The government has issued directions for employees working from “as is where is” basis, meaning thereby that Jammu-based employees would work from the Civil Secretariat in Jammu and those of Kashmir operating from Srinagar. A majority of the employees in the Civil Secretariat and other move offices are from Kashmir.

While the Kashmir-based employees – 70 to 80 per cent of them have already moved to Kashmir – the files and computers will not move. There may be personnel in offices sans files and equipment. How this gap would be bridged has been left to the imagination and innovation of the administrative secretaries and the head of various departments.

All this leaves a trail of unanswered questions. Will all the employees going to Srinagar be tested and if so, when and how. If not, will they be quarantined for two weeks? Even if that is not to be done, will all of them be presumed to be healthy without any need for quarantine and testing? And what about officials in the Secretariat and heads of the departments, and how will they ensure uninterrupted flow of work. There are no answers.

The logic of making a reassessment of the situation on June 15 is understandable, for it signifies that the government is hopeful, rather confident, that things would be easy by next two months. If so, why it was not deferred by two months, many have asked. Meanwhile, former CM Omar Abdullah, tweeted that this order of two “functioning secretariats” will just create confusion because no one will know which secretariat to approach to get their work done. It would be better to withdraw this order and just delay the move of offices till the #Covid-19 threat has passed. Despite repeated attempts to reach government functionaries and officials for their comment on this new method of Durbar move, no response was available till late tonight.