Durbar is on way to Srinagar for a six-month stint. It is reopening in Srinagar on May 7. Even before the offices closed in Jammu on May 27, J&K’s tweeting Chief Minister created barking headlines by terming it a waste of money. “Do I think the Durbar Move is a waste of money? Yes I do.
Is there an alternative? I haven’t seen a viable alternative suggested,” Omar said in his tweet. He personally would throw his weight behind the South African model in which three capital cities share the main governance infrastructure – Bloemfontein is the capital of the judiciary, Cape Town is the legislative capital, and Pretoria is the administrative capital. “I have often talked about examining the South African model but consensus is impossible to find,” he said.
Omar observed that the move is escapism. “We run away when people need us most and face the most difficulty,” he aid. Many people see the solution in it, reverse the duration – let durbar be in Kashmir in winter and in Jammu for summer. Even Rajiv Gandhi suggested it.
Durbar is an archaic exercise that Maharaja’s started after purchasing Kashmir. It was initially aimed at preventing unrest in the valley and then it became a routine part of the governance. Having started by Gulab Singh in 1872, it is now around 138 years old tradition. But how much does it cost the state exchequer? Not very recent details are available but Kashmir Life archive has something that was sourced in later 2006. Here are the details which vary now because the travelling expenses per head were hiked recently:
How Much The Ministers Cost The Public Kitty?
Given the Chief Minister and the council of ministers at top of the governance pyramid, they need to move around, interact with the people frequently, it costs substantially. They are entitled to salary, medical reimbursement, travelling expenses, fuel for their vehicles and the costs of the offices they operate from. Apart from free accommodation, they also have discretionary grants available to them which are fixed.
Deputy Chief Minister and all other cabinet ministers have a salary of Rs 85000, a month and the Ministers of State (MoS) get Rs 80000. While the discretionary grant is fixed at Rs 13 lakh a month for Deputy Chief Minister, it is three lakh rupees a year for other cabinet ministers and only one lakh rupees for an MoS.
The government placed certain documents on table of the state legislature last month that suggested that Deputy Chief Minister took home a sum of Rs 343300 a month, by an average. Next was Health Minister with monthly package of Rs 209000, followed by Revenue Minister with Rs 204000 as MoS Tourism, Revenue, PHE, UEED played the fourth top spender with Rs 202233, a month. The documents suggested that every month the public kitty spends Rs 3186079 on the council of ministers excluding the chief minister. Of this amount Rs 1315000 goes as salary, Rs 524665 goes as discretionary grant and the balance Rs 1346414 as other expenses including that of office, telephone, petrol and TA.
In another document the government revealed that sit has incurred and expenditure of Rs 588.33 lakhs on the accommodation of the entire cabinet including the chief minister in 2010-11. Interestingly, the expenditure booked on the chief minister’s accommodation was Rs 312.56 lakhs – much more than Rs 275.77 lakh that the government spent on all other minister and ministers of state. In 2011-12, accounts of which were not complete, the government said the actual expenditure on the accommodation of all the ministers was Rs 246.92 lakhs of which Rs 63.60 lakh went to the accommodation of chief minister alone.
Interestingly, for the two years 2010-11 and 2011-12, the public kitty spent Rs 19985691 on the accommodation of the entire bureaucracy that rules J&K. Besides, they took Rs 15908401 as TA and Rs 5686262 as medical reimbursements.
Chief Minister, it is worth mentioning here, is not claiming any TA and DA. By and large he flies around but still the rules give him a right to claim the TA which he is foregoing.
How Costly Is The Flying Of Our Top Officials?
J&K’s Civil Aviation Department is the proud owner of an Aircraft King Air – 350 and two helicopters – Bell 407 and Augusta-109E. The aircraft is generally deployed to facilitate the movement of VVIPs on Jammu-Srinagar-Leh-Rajouri-Delhi circuits. Helicopters are used within the state for official purposes on security considerations besides deploying for casualty evacuation, patient lifting and airlifting pilgrims to the Amarnath cave on payment basis.
The Fixed wing aircraft was purchased in 2007 from M/S Raytheon Aircraft, USA for US $ 6550616 after the cabinet approved the purchase on March 31, 2007. However, the old fixed wing aircraft was sold to the same company for Rs US $ 1650000. Thus the net cost that was paid to the company was US $ 4900616. Of the two choppers, the Augusta-109 is a twin engine chopper that was purchased from M/S Augusta West Land for US $ 4411500 (Rs 20 crores) in 2005 aftr the cabinet approved the deal on May 29, 2005. The Bell 407 was purchased in 2002 from M/S Bell Helicopters Asia (PTF) Ltd Singapore for US $ 1799975 after duly approved by the cabinet on February 25, 2002. The details tabled in the house suggested that in 821 days between January 2009 to March 15, 2012, the aircraft King Air-350 carried out 849 sorties. While the Bell 407 helicopter conducted 1958, the Augusta-109E, the most modern chopper that usually chief minister prefers, conducted 1362 sorties. It suggests the flying machines are apparently flying for most of the days.
Who Is In The Civil Secretariat?
Civil Secretariat is a huge building and once the durbar moves from Jammu to Srinagar and vice versa, the routine traffic movement on the highway is disrupted. It remains crowded for most of its stint in Srinagar or Jammu. But if you are in secretariat, what is the possibility of you interacting with. Ministers apart, this is the main combination of the regional mix in the civil secretariat that J&K government revealed very recently. The list excludes the non-state subject IAS officers, who are at the top of the governance and decision making pyramid. Besides, the ministers are also excluded from this statistical infograph.
Explaining the crisis and a regional mismatch, the government said that posts borne on the civil secretariat establishment are state cadre posts belonging to various service – IAS, KAS, Secretariat (G) Service-1 and Service-2, Economics and Statistics (G) Service, Accounts (G) Service, Legal (G) Service and various other non-gazetted services. All these selections are made by the UPSC, PSC and Service Selection Board. As far as the near absence of Ladakh from the secretariat is concerned, the government said: “Since the Ladakh region has separate Recruitment Boards for Kargil and Leh, the candidates belonging to this region mostly prefer to seek appointment in Ladakh region.”
New Jobs Created
Creation of posts is a regular exercise. J&K Government has created 3462 gazetted and 10572 non-gazetted positions in two years – 2010 and 2011. This is in addition to the 30 gazetted positions and 35 non-gazetted posts in the state cadre, 13 non gazetted positions in the state public service commission, 11 gazetted and 25 non-gazetted posts for the state information commission besides appointing two pilots in the civil aviation department. Here is where the positions have gone.
