Jammu and Kashmir LG gets two new advisors

The government of Jammu and Kashmir issued an order on Tuesday appointing Kewal Kumar Sharma, a retired bureaucrat, and Farooq Khan, a retired IPS officer, as advisors to the Union Territory's first Lieutenant-Governor, G.C. Murmu.

Sharma and Khan have been designated as Advisor (S) and Advisor (F), respectively, in the order that was issued by the General Administration Department of Jammu and Kashmir.

In an annexure to the order, the two advisors have been allotted their areas of operations. Sharma will be responsible for advising the Lieutenant Governor in public works (R&B), power development, school education, higher education, technical education, industries and commerce, tourism and planning, and development and monitoring.

Khan will advise Murmu on food, civil supplies and consumer affairs, ARI and trainings, co-operative, floriculture, election, labour and employment, Haj and Auqaf, social welfare, tribal affairs and youth services and sports.

An IAS officer of 1983 batch, Sharma retired as the Higher Education Secretary in the Union ministry of Human Resources Development in February last year. Sharma, who hails from Kathua in Jammu, is the topper of the 1980 batch of the Regional Engineering College, Srinagar.

Farooq Ahmad Khan, an IPS officer of 1994 batch, was appointed as advisor to then J&K Governor Satya Pal Malik after being shifted from Lakshawdeep, where he served as an administrator. He was instrumental in the creation of the Special Task Force, J&K police's anti-militancy wing, in 1994-95 when the erstwhile state was under President's rule.

The Union Home Ministry had cleared the appointments on November 14.

( With inputs from IANS )