I t is a natural corollary that an entire state getting bifurcated into two Union Territories should be followed by addressing issues concerning adhering to certain prerequisites to make the entire exercise workable in a smooth way. Besides sharing assets and liabilities , rather distributing those according to certain parameters like which part stood at advantageous position and which otherwise, ancillary issues too needed to be settled. Administration , its mechanism and structure , is too important to be afforded to be ignored and it is likely that employees in either or both the parts wanted to move to the part where they were domiciles of , needed to be completed , if still something more was left out to be done. In other words, as on date, there were series of measures still required to be taken in this regard between Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh , the two Union Territories. Apportioning of employees between the two UTs had to be made and in fact , a deadline for the same too was prescribed. It is not that something of the sort has not been done as most of the employees have been posted in Ladakh UT on deputation basis who otherwise continue to remain employees of Jammu and Kashmir. That works rather in a negative way too as deputation by itself denotes temporary-hood and much of performance and accountability could not be expected. Till date, this basic need based requirement of reasonable number of employees to be there with due formal segregation orders to work with the UT of Ladakh to run its administration smoothly , having not taken place, needs a thorough review at the top level of the administration of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. In fact, this was one of the vital exercises to be undertaken in respect of measures necessarily to be taken after the bifurcation. Even if as many as 19500 posts of various ranks of employees were sanctioned to Ladakh which was to come from the UT of Jammu and Kashmir, proper segregation and placement of the manpower has not been done in the manner as expected . It could be due to various reasons like most of the Government priorities getting expended on management of COVID -19 related issues for most of the part of last year when phases of lockdown and other constraints came in the way and now , this year the virus having been in its new but severely threatening form and affecting both the UTs and thus priorities given to treating daily increasing infection cases, the exercise starting quite earlier seems unlikely. However, if not with full measure, progressively this exercise could be undertaken so as to have manpower position improving steadily in Ladakh. What about fresh recruitments to tide over the difficulties is not known but any administrative approval required for the same from Union Home Ministry should not be in any waiting . Likewise, distribution of assets and transferring and passing on liabilities between the two UTs was yet another issue and thanks to the timely approval given by the Union Home Ministry, the exercise is completed. There are, however, issues pertaining to apportionment of employees alone coming in the way of smooth functioning of administration in the UT of Ladakh where even many key positions in the set up in Leh and Kargil are continuing to be vacant and either deputations or ad-hoc arrangements are resorted to. That 25 to 30 per cent of posts in various categories of employees continue to be not filled, as on date, and hence are not being manned at all, are all resulting in having a telling effect on smooth functioning of administration.
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