The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has written to several government departments and ministries, including railways, defence, customs and excise, commerce, P&T etc to seek consent of officials willing to be posted in the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, apparently, due to acute shortage of officers, post their bifurcation, last year.
According to the J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019, officers belonging to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFS) in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir “shall continue to function on the existing cadres,” till the Lieutenant Governor of J&K determines the final allocation of such officers between J&K and Ladakh. A year after the reorganisation of J&K, the cadre allocation is yet to be completed. Coupled with this, all new recruits are allocated the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram-Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre, resulting into a severe crunch of officers for J & K and Ladakh cadres. Now faced with shortage of officers, the MHA is asking various government departments to depute Group A service officers to the two UTs to overcome the shortage.
For around four lakh government employees in undivided J&K there were only 58 IAS and 66 IPS officers, out of which, 9 are on Central deputation and 16 on suspension. The total sanctioned strength of IAS and IPS officers in J&K is 137 and 147 respectively, giving an indication towards a severe crunch of officers in J&K and Ladakh.
