The administration of Governor Satya Pal Malik on Friday granted Ladakh a divisional status, thus creating three administrative units of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.
Ladakh was earlier a part of the Kashmir division. "The J&K government has approved creation of a separate a administrative and revenue Division for Ladakh. This division will comprise Leh and Kargil districts with its headquarters at Leh," said a government order.
Ladakh will now get its own Divisional Commissioner and Inspector General of Police. "A committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary to Government, Planning, Development and Monitoring Department to identify the posts of divisional level heads of various departments that may be required for the new division," said the order.
The is second time that Ladakh was granted more autonomous status in the State. Earlier the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government established the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils (LAHDC) Leh and Kargil.
"After the elections of 2019 should the people of J&K repose faith in National Conference (NC), our government will grant division status to Chenab valley and Pir Panchal regions as already laid out in our regional autonomy promise," said NC vice president and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.
Welcoming the decision, Peoples Democratic Party president and former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said, "The process of decentralization of administrative control by creation of new division is good and welcome though Ladakh already has Hill Development Councils. However we are forced to question the intent behind it. As we have already said that whenever such decisions are to be taken Chenab and Pirpanchal regions should not and can not be ignored because of underdevelopment in these areas."
She said the PDP had sought to create new divisions in these regions earlier also when we were in coalition with the BJP but the BJP opposed it then. "Now it seems Governor is peddling one party's agenda by ignoring the deserving Pirpanchal and Chenab areas at the behest of BJP," said Ms. Mufti.