Facing severe constraints of manpower crisis and requiring immediately at least 250 officers to run its departments normally, the Ladakh UT administration has approached Union Home Ministry as well as Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory to bail it out of the current crisis. A few months back ‘Excelsior’ raised the issue of incompatibility in posting of officers and acceding at random to the request of going back to the place of domicile of those officers posted in Ladakh at the time of making of two Union Territories of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state. If we term the decision of ‘readjusting’ officers staff at that time as a hasty step and not having been taken in prudent way, it will not be an overstatement. We do not say that those officers posted in Ladakh hailing from places other than from Ladakh region should have not been transferred or sent back to their home towns but the void created and deficiency caused as such to the number of officers to man and head various departments and offices in Ladakh, was not visualised in perspective and resolved side by side till the situation reached unmanageable proportions hence nothing less than an ‘SoS’ to Union Home Ministry from the Ladakh UT administration.
With carving out of a Union Territory of Ladakh from out of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, people expected a change for better in so far as delivery of public services was concerned and the same should have been taken into consideration but in spite of bringing this fact into the knowledge of the Central Government and also the UT Government of Jammu and Kashmir a few months ago to help the Ladakh administration tide over the crisis by deputing the required personnel, the situation has remained more or less the same. That is totally unacceptable. We learn that most of the departments in UT Ladakh are ‘headless’ and functioning with skeleton staff which is fraught with consequences of utter deficiency of delivery of satisfactory services besides creating room for inefficiency and possibly corruption too. The position in district offices was reported to be more precarious as there was no posting made of supporting staff from the concerned directorates.
The position of sensitive posts and departments handled and headed by officers like Sub- Divisional Magistrates, Block Development Officers, Doctors, Executive Engineers and other important field staff was equally disturbing as most of the posts are lying vacant and no exercise undertaken to fill those vacancies. As per the data and relevant figures available, there are 682 sanctioned posts of officers in UT Ladakh comprising Directors, Chief Engineers, Joint Directors, Secretaries, Law Officers and host of other officers against which a small and incompatible number of 281 officers only are posted and working. In other words, the UT of Ladakh is in need of 401 officers but in dire and immediate need of 252 officers to tide over the widening and deepening crisis.
Immediate solution and resolving of the problem could be in respect of the necessary help extended by the UT Government of Jammu and Kashmir and it is a matter of satisfaction that after examining the matter from all angles, the Government has asked the concerned Secretaries, Commissioners and other bureaucrats to obtain recommendations for deputation of officers to the UT of Ladakh and within a few days furnish desirous names to the General Administration Department so that necessary orders could be issued. That being an ad-hoc measure at best to keep the rigours of crisis away for a year or so at best two years, demanding, therefore, a lasting resolution which must be found out at an early date.
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