Ladakh LG loses major financial powers; UT leaders want order revoked

Srinagar: As the Ministry of Home Affairs divested Ladakh's lieutenant governor of major financial powers, the UT representatives said the move will further disempower the region and impact the pace of development.

LG Kavinder Gupta in an order, following the MHA direction, informed that the approval of schemes/projects, including those under the public private partnership model, up to ₹100 crore will now be exercised by the Union home ministry. LG's powers to accord administrative approval and expenditure up to ₹100 crore and administrative secretaries up to ₹20 crore will now be granted by MHA. Chief engineers, head of departments, including deputy commissioners who are also the CEO of Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Councils in Leh and Kargil, and superintending engineers can no longer sanction individual works between ₹3 crore to ₹10 crore.

"Decisions like these will disempower people of Ladakh further. It will impact the development as people sitting in Delhi don't know the ground situation. The UT administration, which was a puppet, has been further demoted into irrelevance," Apex Body Leh co chairman Cherring Dorjay told ET. Kargil Democratic Alliance member Sajjad Kargili demanded the order be revisited.