RK Mathur takes oath as Ladakh’s first Lieutenant Governor

Mangalore Today News Network

Ladakh,Oct 31 2019: Former IAS officer Radha Krishna Mathur was Thursday sworn-in as the first Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh, which officially became a Union Territory after the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir.

 

Mathur, who will turn 66 in a month, is a 1977-batch IAS officer from Tripura. He retired as the defence secretary in 2015 and was appointed as the chief information commissioner in December of the same year. He completed his tenure in November last year after attaining the age of 65 years.

Mathur was administered oath by Jammu and Kashmir High Court Justice Gita Mittal. The event was attended by officials of the Leh and Kargil hill councils, Army and paramilitary forces, religious leaders and the general public.

After taking oath as the LG, Mathur said a lot of development activities needed to be carried out in the border areas. “Already the government is implementing several programmes in the region, priorities for Ladakh will be set in the new regime in consultation with the public and hill councils,” Mathur was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

Mathur further said his experience of working in the backward and border areas in the capacity of the chief secretary of Tripura and the defence secretary will be useful.

Ahead of the swearing-in, the Centre revoked the President’s rule in the Union Territory which was imposed last year in the undivided Jammu and Kashmir.

Umang Narula, a 1989-batch IAS officer, has been posted as an advisor to Mathur, while S S Khandare, a 1995-batch IPS officer, has been assigned the post of the “Head of Police” in Ladakh.

Meanwhile, Girish Chandra Murmu was also sworn in as the first Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory today.

The bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir was necessitated after the Centre stripped the erstwhile state of its special status under Article 370. The state was bifurcated into two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, which came into existence today.

Courtesy:indianexpress.com