New Delhi: The Union government is working overtime to set the stage for newly created Union Territories (UTs) of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, official sources said on Saturday.
According to the sources, Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, along with other officials of the Home Ministry, is working on the future course of action for highly sensitive J&K division.
Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh will become two separate Union territories from October 31 with a common high court.
The Centre had on August 5 nullified Article 370 of the Constitution, revoking the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, following which the parliament approved the resolution in this connection and also passed the bill on the bifurcation of the state into two UTs.
A few days later on August 9, President Ram Nath Kovind gave assent to the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, bifurcating the two Union Territories, which will come into existence on October 31.
The creation of these new UTs on October 31, would mean overlapping administrative work with the UT division of the Home Ministry. The UT division in the ministry handles matters related to them.
The matters related to the states are handled by the centre-state division of the ministry and it looks after items mentioned in the concurrent list of the constitution.
The Home Ministry is also busy in dealing with the matter of cadre allocation for the Indian Police Service (IPS) officers to be posted in the newly created UTs.
With the formation of new UTs, IPS officers of the Jammu & Kashmir cadre will have to be reallocated to Arunachal Pradesh Goa Mizoram Union Territory (AGMUT ) cadre and all these are being done for the smooth transition of the status of Jammu and Kashmir.
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