The Civil Secretariat, the seat of Jammu and Kashmir Administration, will open here on Monday after functioning in summer capital Srinagar for six months as part of the nearly 150-year-old practice known in the union territory as the ‘Durbar Move’.
Adequate arrangements, especially those related to security, have been put in place to ensure smooth functioning of the Civil Secretariat and other move offices, including the Raj Bhawan and police headquarters in Jammu, officials said.The Covid pandemic delayed the Durbar Move from Jammu to Srinagar this summer. The Civil Secretariat and other move offices, which observe a five-day week, closed in Srinagar on October 30, while the offices observing a six-day week closed the next day.
The practice of ‘Durbar Move’ — under which the administration functions in Jammu during six months of winter and in Srinagar during summer — was started by Maharaja Gulab Singh in 1872 to escape extreme weather conditions in the two regions of the state.However, the practice was continued even after Independence with the aim of providing governance benefits to both Kashmir and Jammu regions for six months by turns.
