Speaker orders shifting of government offices to Secretariat; takes note of ‘vacant’ official gallery

Secretaries directed to be present; keep additional secretaries available for session proceedings. Missing obituary reference to be included on Wednesday

SRINAGAR:Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather has taken a serious note of the ‘vacant’ official gallery in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly and issued orders to the Government to keep the Secretary rank officers present for observing and recording the important points of the proceedings of the current session from Wednesday.
Even as Secretary of Law and Parliamentary Affairs Department, Achal Sethi, was personally present alongside his subordinate officials, it was noticed that most of the administrative secretaries were absent all through the House proceedings on the second day of the session on Tuesday.
For most of the time, the first two rows of the official gallery were unoccupied on Tuesday. Some of the junior officers were seen occupying the back rows.
During the Lieutenant Governor’s address on the first day of the session on Monday, almost all the Secretaries to Government were present, watching the proceedings. They included Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Dheeraj Gupta, Financial Commissioner Shalin Kabra and other senior rank bureaucrats. It was noticed that none of them, with a couple of exceptions like Law Secretary, was present in the official gallery on Tuesday.
After a long exchange of notes between the Assembly Secretariat and the Civil Secretariat, late on Tuesday night the General Administration Department (GAD) issued an Office Memorandum, calling upon the bureaucracy to ensure the presence of senior officers in the official gallery from tomorrow.
“The undersigned is directed to invite the kind attention of All Administrative Secretaries towards the captioned subject (“Discussion on Motion of thanks on the Lieutenant Governor’s Address”) and request them to remain present during the ongoing session of J&K Legislative Assembly at Srinagar. Besides, all Departments shall depute an officer not below the rank of Additional Secretary, on full time basis, to attend the proceedings of the Assembly”, reads the Official Memorandum issued by the GAD.

By way of another order, No; 1866-JK(GAD) of 2024 Dated 05-11-2024, Additional Secretary GAD Rohit Sharma, Deputy Secretaries Jaffar Hussain Sheikh, Akshay Rajan and Shoaib Noor besides Under Secretaries Irfan Manzoor and Shakeeb Arsalan were deployed for recording the proceedings of the ongoing session as per a duty roster on November 6, 7 and 8.
Later in the evening, by way of GAD Order No: 1867-JK(GAD) of 2024 dated 05-11-2024, Additional Secretaries Vikas Verma, Amit Vermani and Malik Suhail were deployed for attending proceedings of the ongoing session on November 6, 7 and 8 respectively.
On Monday itself, immediately after his unanimous election as Speaker, Mr Rather had flagged the issue of the non-availability of space for the Assembly Secretariat and the offices of Speaker and Deputy Speaker in his address to the House. While addressing the Leader of the House and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Mr Rather revealed that a large number of rooms in the Legislature Complex had been “occupied” by the Government Departments.
Mr Rather complained that there was no space even for the Assembly Library. He said he had noticed in his inspection of the complex that the library books had been laying in the corridors as the Government Departments and officers from the Civil Secretariat had occupied these spaces in the 6 long years of Governor’s and the President’s rule. He implored the Chief Minister to order shifting of all these offices and officers back to the Civil Secretariat.
Knowledgeable sources toldThe NEWS NOW that even after the popular governing being in place after 6 years, there was still a considerable communication and coordination gap between different offices and institutions. While 57 obituary references came up for tributes in the Assembly on Tuesday, a former legislator’s family from Kulgam complained to the Speaker that his name had been omitted. It was noticed that officers from the Deputy Commissioner’s office and Chief Electoral Officer had reported in the proforma that none of the former or sitting legislators had passed away in Kulgam district in the last seven years.
Sources said that the omitted legislator’s obituary reference would be included in the motion after a grave lapse on Wednesday.

Updated On 11/6/2024 3:31:18 AM