National Conference Member Parliament, Muhammad Akbar Lone on Monday expressed concern over the government’s move to allow several key Move departments to function from Jammu secretariat.
In a statement, Lone said previously the government had halted Darbar Move citing COVID19, and since then successive orders emanating from government have only added to the confusion on ground, perplexing administration and festering unaccountability within administration.
“The traditional Darbar Move is less climatology driven and more symbolic that affords a sense of empowerment to people in the two diverse regions on either sides of Pirpanjal range to striking of unity and amity between different ethnic groups living across the length and breadth of J&K.
Regrettably everything which symbolized Kashmir’s due say in the administration has been obliterated and done away with,” Lone said. “Stationing all important departments in Jammu has put an end to the participative feeling of Kashmiri people.
The step has added an insult to injury, as if stripping Kashmir of its special constitutional character wasn’t enough.” Lone said the successive democratic government of the state too held that shifting the highest seat of power to and fro from Jammu to Srinagar will give impetus to development in the two diverse and geographically disconnected regions of J&K.
“This imprudent diktat ordering many departments to remain stationed at Jammu sans logic. What is more upsetting is that departments like Health and disaster management have been made to stay put at Jammu, given the fact that the present precarious times required these departments to shift to Kashmir in view of the spike in COVID19 related cases,” Lone said.
He said such decisions will perceptibly echo on ground in terms of unaccountability and organizational breakdown.
“The order will inadvertently hit the morale of ground workers and frontline staff associated with the concerned departments,” Lone said. He said there was no convincing reason for the government to station these offices in Jammu permanently given the fact that all the departments traditionally moved to Srinagar with the shifting of Darbar Move.