After successfully digitising over two crore pages from 3.50 lakh files of various Government offices in Jammu & Kashmir the Union Territory administration has taken the next logical step of cancelling official accommodation of 'darbar' move employees in both the twin capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar.
Majority of employees, working in the civil secretariat, used to shuttle between Jammu and Srinagar after a gap of six months and were lodged in different residential accommodation facilities.
According to an order issued by the Commissioner Secretary, Estates Department, M Raju, these employees have been directed to vacate their residential accommodation within 21 days from the date of issuance of the order.
A total number of 463 accommodations were cancelled in Srinagar and 1,683 in Jammu, the order said.
The UT administration initiated these measures after uploading the digitised files into the new e-office project to enable the Government employees access these files from any location.
The project was launched after an order was passed to suspend this year's bi-annual shifting of Darbar move which entailed a whopping expenditure of over 200 crores.
This practice of shifting the 'darbar' move offices was going on since pre-independence years and was reportedly started in the 19th century by the Dogra ruler Maharaja Ranbir Singh.
According to official sources around 5,000 employees including top bureaucrats used to rotate between Jammu and Srinagar and were given travel allowance. At present these employees were receiving 25,000 travel allowance.