The Governor has paid his first visit to the Secretariat and called a meeting of administrative secretaries to issue instructions to them of how they have to conduct themselves until the time a popular Government is installed. The first thing which he did immediately was to instruct the Chief Secretary not to transfer any senior officer from his present posting because no transfers would be justified if made during a short interim period of Governor’s rule. However, in the course of his meeting at the Secretariat the Governor has issued a slew of instructions, particularly in the area of developmental schemes and projects that are already in the pipeline. Concerned about regular flow of funds for projects either undertaken by the State or sponsored by the Centre, the Governor has directed the administrative secretary to submit the Utilization Certificate to the Central Government against expenditures incurred while implementing the centrally sponsored schemes in the State. It will be recalled hat the Centre has tightened its grip on funds for want of UC from the State.
The Governor is taking firm decisions in many important and urgent administrative matters and does not want the bureaucracy should be under an impression that since the popular Government is not in place, it could go by its free will. He has touched on each and every aspect of disciple and observance of rules to convey clearly to the administrative structure that he will be keeping eye on the functionality of the Government. In regard to transfers of officers, he has already issued instructions that no transfers will be ordered but now he has made a small change in that order saying that under unavoidable circumstances or where the officers were awaiting adjustments order could be issued but before doing that the papers have to be submitted to the Governor. Aware of financial crunch through which the State was passing, he made it clear to the authorities that the salary of the employee and the pension amount of pensioners would be paid regularly, The Governor has instructed that bio-metric attendance mechanism should be implemented in the Secretariat as has been done in the office of the Governor and that is a guarantee against the employees playing truant. The Governor has issued strict instructions that no lethargy will be tolerated in bringing incomplete projects to completion within the stipulated time.
The Governor held separate meeting with Principal Secretary (Home) RK Goyal and Director General of Police (DGP) who briefed him on internal security situation in the State. It has become very important to beef up the security for two main reasons. One is that in the light of Pathankot air force base attack that resulted in killing of some of our air force personnel besides civilians, terrorists might be sill hiding in their safe heavens and might be waiting for a suitable opportunity to strike again. The second point is that the Republic Day is round the corner. The security structure has to be in place; it has to ensure that terrorists are denied each and every chance they might be contemplating to strike on that occasion at odd places. For these reasons the Governor is keeping himself abreast with ground situation in security area.
Calling for strict surveillance on the situation, he stressed for beefing up security situation in the State particularly in the wake of militant attack at Pathankot. He directed that security agencies must have close liaison and take all steps to ensure that the militants didn’t succeed in their designs. It has to be seen that the Governor has been called upon at a critical time when the departure of the Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed has left a big gap in the administrative structure. However, at least there is one redeeming factor. There is no chance of the budget session beginning on 19th of January as had been proposed earlier by the coalition Government. We know that it is a tedious and baffling situation for the Governor to run the administration right now. But he is a seasoned administrator and has vast experience of running the administration of J&K.
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