Move Offices To Close In Srinagar On Oct 25, Reopen In Jammu On Nov 4

Srinagar As part of the bi-annual “Darbar Move”, under which the Jammu and Kashmir government functions for six months each in Jammu and Srinagar, all move offices, including the civil secretariat and the Raj Bhavan, will close in Srinagar on October 25-26 and reopen in Jammu on November 4,

This will be the first “Darbar Move” after the scrapping of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and its bifurcation into Union territories in August, which also gave rise to the speculation that the governor’s administration was planning to do away with the century-old practice that costs the state exchequer huge money annually.

The order said the General Administration Department (GAD), the Home, Hospitality and Protocol, Estates, Information Technology, Information departments as well as the National Informatics Centre would identify a few officers and staff, who would stay in Srinagar till November 1 in view of the impending formation of the two new Union territories—Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh—on October 31.

The order, issued by Additional Secretary to the Government, GAD, Subash Chhibber, said the move offices observing five days a week would close at Srinagar on October 25 and those observing six days a week would close in October 26, after the office hours.

“All the offices shall reopen at Jammu on November 4 (Monday),” the order read.

The “Darbar Move” was started by the then Maharaja Gulab Singh in 1872 to escape the extreme summer heat in Jammu and the biting cold of winters in Srinagar and the practice was continued by the elected governments post-independence to provide governance benefits, by turns, to both the Kashmir and Jammu regions of the state for six months each.

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