MIRPUR [AJK]: “Reorganization of civil Services structure in Azad Jammu Kashmir begins – which the AJK government has asserted is yet another important step towards the region’s institutional reforms by the incumbent State government.
Unveiling the details, an AJK government handout issued late Friday said that consultations were afoot to appoint a separate secretary for each department to improve the performance of government institutions.
It continued that in Azad Jammu Kashmir, there is one secretary who works for two or more departments and this tradition has been in practice there for a long time the most important departments were handed over to the same secretary.
In order to reverse this practice the incumbent government has decided to hand over important departments to secretaries with their own separate Secretariats.
According to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat, the secretaries of 8 major departments including municipalities, electricity, and highways are proposed to be promoted to the positions of Additional Chief Secretary on a seniority basis.
Similarly, the post of the head of the home department, who used to be an additional secretary for seventy years, has been upgraded to a full secretary.
Likewise, separate secretariats are being established for other sectors including minerals, livestock whereas departments of Tourism, Police, CTDC, CID, and Cybercrime are already working separately.
There is a proposal to keep the Special Branch directly under the Prime Minister while other departments under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Upgradation and reform proposals are also being considered in other police departments. 4 to 6 posts of DIGs are being upgraded and promoted to the rank of Additional IGs who would be posted in Mirpur, Muzaffarabad, Poonch and Headquarters.
Practical steps are also under consideration to increase the scope of traffic police.
Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas Khan has also given his assent to the said proposals and hopefully progress on these proposals is expected in the next few days. The Institutional reforms and establishment of new secretariats and appointments would go a long way to improve functioning of the state institutions besides solving public problems, the official handout concluded.