The three major religious shrines in Jammu – Shri Shiv Khori, Shri Mata Sukrala Devi and Shri Mata Bala Sundri had their respective Shrine Boards become defunct several years back due to the non-official members having completed their tenure on these Boards . The Boards , therefore, had to be reconstituted for which necessary formalities in the form of making fresh nominations had to be made . These are the statutory requirements as provided for under the relevant Shrine Acts concerning these shrines.
These mandatory formalities were not of any complicated nature which should have taken as much time , despite the fact that in the absence of completion of these formalities neither the Boards could be re-constituted nor any business of these Boards, even of critical and urgent nature, all in the interests of the respective shrines, could be conducted . That resulted in the sheer neglect of these shrines even on day to day maintenance let alone undertaking many projects of small nature for overall development of these shrines and providing facilities to the visiting devotees. However, an entire unwarranted and unexpected approach had been witnessed by the Tourism Department in respect of the process of such nominations which, however, now reportedly has examined names of non-official members recommended by the Divisional Commissioner Jammu and respective Deputy Commissioners of Kathua and Reasi. Hopefully, these names are expected to be soon placed before the UT Lieutenant Governor for approval so that the Boards are re-constituted to enable the usual business and functions thereof to commence at a faster pace to make good the loss of considerable period of intervening time.
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