Agencies
New Delhi, Jan 8: Senior J&K BJP leader and Union Minister MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh Friday said UT cadre will offer Jammu & Kashmir wider choice of officers to choose from because there is going to be a much larger pool of All India Service officers, including IAS officers, for posting in the two newly created Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
Talking to Doordarshan on the implications of the government order merging the J&K cadre of All India Services into the AGMUT cadre, Singh said, “J&K will now be getting its officers from the common cadre available for the three States of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram as well as all the Union Territories of India”.
“As a result of this, the officers from J&K can now be moved seamlessly in and out of J&K among the different Union Territories of India as well as the three States of Arunachal Pradesh, Goa and Mizoram. Such an arrangement often tends to bring in more accountability in the conduct and performance of officers,” he said.
Singh disclosed that bringing in another reform, the DoPT has also done away with the UPA regime order whereby J&K used to have directly appointed IAS officers vis-a-vis IAS officers inducted from the State KAS in the ratio of 50:50, which was in contrast to the ratio of around 67:33 maintained in other State/UT cadres of the country whereby over 67% IAS officers are the ones who have been directly selected into IAS through All India Civil Services Exam.
As a result of this earlier arrangement, he said, the number of directly inducted IAS officers was much lower in Jammu & Kashmir whereas a large number of IAS officers were those who had been inducted into IAS from the State KAS services. “Now, with the introduction of the same ratio in J&K as is prevalent elsewhere, this anomaly will also stand corrected to a large extent and the composition of IAS services in J&K will be the same as elsewhere”.
“After the creation of Union Territory following the abrogation of Article 370, the merger of J&K cadre into AGMUT cadre was a natural corollary and would further carry forward the process of total integration of J&K with the mainstream India,” added Singh.