SRINAGAR: By early May when the durbar will return to Srinagar, it will be lighter in comparison to 2020. This time only “sensitive records” will travel from Jammu to Srinagar, The Indian Express reported.

Durbar Arrives: Maharaja Partap Singh being taken to his palace in Srinagar in a huge boat. Photo Ottoo Hanigmann

The secretariat in Jammu will close by April 30, and the government will open its Srinagar secretariat on May 10. This shuttling of the governor’s office has been in vogue for the last 148 years, soon after the Treaty of Amritsar.

Jammu and Kashmir’s Commissioner-Secretary, General Administration Department, Manoj Kumar Dwivedi, has issued an order stating that “it has been decided to completely switch over to e–office by April 15’’ to “improve efficiency and effectiveness of the government and to obviate the requirement of physical movement of files/records from Jammu to Srinagar and vice versa’’.

The circular mentions that all Administrative Secretaries have been instructed to “compile a list of such confidential/sensitive files/records, including files/records of respective subordinate move offices, which have not been scanned and require to be carried to Srinagar’’. It stated, “The quantum of such files be provided by all the departments to the General Administration Department by April 15 for approval.”

The circular also mentioned that it has been decided “only ten trucks shall be arranged for shifting such sensitive records/files to Srinagar’’.

It was not immediately known if the weight-shedding will include part of the staff too.

The move came a year after a division bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court observed that there was no legal justification or constitutional basis for continuing with the 148-year-old tradition.

Traditionally the durbar will move with tons of files and machines in hundreds of truckloads at a good cost. However, it is not known if the files being retained in Jammu will perpetually stay there.

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