NEW DELHI: The Chief Minister of India's troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir has ruffled feathers after he questioned the logic behind a 140-year-old tradition of shifting its capital between summer and winter months, saying the tradition was ‘escapist'. The state of Jammu and Kashmir has two capitals with Jammu being the winter capital and Srinagar being the summer capital “Do I think the ‘Durbar move' (shifting of capital) is a waste of money? Yes I do. Is there an alternative? I haven't seen a viable alternative suggested”, said Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in comments on his Twitter account. In a one of its kind exercise, and definitely the only one in the Union of India, secretariat of the State of Jammu and Kashmir with 7,000 employees and thousands of files moving shifting between the two cities set 300 kilometers apart through notorious Himalayan terrain. However it is lucky for the government employees who hail from the two regions of the state, and get a chance to spend six months another's terrain. The shifting costs the state a whopping $ 9 million each year. The tradition was first begun by the Dogra monarch Maharaja Gulab Singh who started the process in 1872 to escape harsh winter in Srinagar and severe summer in Jammu. “I agree. We run away when people need us most and (they) face the most difficulty. The durbar move is escapist,” wrote the chief minister. In this day, however, the shifting move helps pacify the two bitterly divided regions of the state Jammu and Srinagar which lies in the Kashmir valley with both regions getting an equal share of government. It should be noted that It will be difficult for the government to decide which among the two capitals to settle for, if at all they decide to do so.
