Bureaucracy in JK

Bureaucracy in Jammu and Kashmir has a sharp focus of media especially in various media houses operating from New Delhi. There have been news items about the shortage of IAS officers and IPS officers in union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and it has been a problem of the past.

Recently the Lok Sabha passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which merged the J&K cadre of All India Service Officers comprising Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS), and Indian Forest Service (IFS) officers with that of the Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram, and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre.

This implies that officers of these services, posted in Union Territories and the three states mentioned, can now also be posted in J&K and Ladakh, and vice versa.

The government has already started working on this new possibility to get the officers from outside as many of the cadre posts are being looked after by the officers who are junior to such posts.

Recently JK administration has started the process to get the officers from outside and some of the postings have been done and more officers are expected to come to Jammu and Kashmir for this purpose.

There has been a dearth of officers and most of the times single IAS officer in Jammu and Kashmir is holding multiple departments and this additional charge syndrome is still here to stay for sometime till the government will streamline this phenomenon.