In a significant step towards greater integration, India's Home Ministry has opened the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to IAS and IPS officers of the AGMUT cadre. The cadre consists of states like Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram and other Union Territories.
However, officers of these two services posted in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have not been included for the new order. The Home Ministry has invited proposals from the officers posted in the aforementioned areas through their respective lieutenant governors.
Centre to allow-inter cadre deputation
As per a report, in a communication to the administration of all Union Territories, Home Ministry has asked them to send proposals of IAS and IPS officers of AGMUT cadre who are willing to take inter-cadre positing in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. "IAS and IPS (but not IFS) officers will have to write their respective lieutenant governors to the Union Home Ministry for posting in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh," the proposal read.
Only IAS and IPS officers of AGMUT are allowed to seek this inter-cadre posting to J&K and Ladakh. IFS is not included.
The government claimed that the proposal would also assist Jammu and Kashmir's IAS and IPS officers in different Union Territories under the AGMUT arrangement to receive inter-cadre deputation in J&K and Ladakh's Union Territories and serve in their former home state.
Moreover, the two Union Territories will also receive the services of some seasoned officers from other UTs including New Delhi whose officers are also included in the AGMUT cadre. Notably, some IPS officers were sent on deputation to J&K and posted in the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), after Jammu and Kashmir became a Union Territory. Sources have stated that the list of IAS and IPS officers will be approved in consultations after the Home Ministry has finalized for posting in the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Last year, after the center scrapped Article 370 in the erstwhile State of J&K, bifurcating into UTs, it had allowed IAS and IPS officers posted in Jammu and Kashmir to retain the J&K Cadre. It had said that from 2020 batch the civil servants will be posted in these two UTs from AGMUT cadre.
