More than a year has passed after the Union Territory status and a lot has changed ever since. The much-awaited UT status has definitely shown much hope and expectation but the reality looks different now. 

There are growing disappointments and concerns among the people of Ladakh at all levels. On one hand, youths of Ladakh are anxious about job opportunities and future safeguard, while on the other hand, nearly 1700 Non-Gazetted Ladakh Police personnel are waiting for their due promotion.  

After bifurcation of the erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state, police personnel of Ladakh Police ranking from Head Constable (HC) 1988 batches onwards are still waiting for their due promotion. Their counterpart in Kashmir and Jammu zone already got promoted to Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) rank officer. In Kashmir and Jammu zone 1984-85 batches constables are promoted to Sub Inspector level officer but in the case of Ladakh Police, they are promoted to a rank of ASI. Similarly, Sub-Inspector (SI) of 2010-11 Ladakh Police batches haven’t got their due promotion while on the other hand their counterpart in Kashmir and Jammu zone got promoted to Inspector rank officer in 2020. 

It was also reported that many of the Ladakh Police personnel already got retired from their service without promotion benefits and many are also getting retired soon. 

Satish Khandare, ADGP, Ladakh Police said, “The final apportionment of J&K and Ladakh has not been done after bifurcation thus there are issues. For promotion, we need clear vacancies in Ladakh Police which is not there because the final allocation between the two Union Territory is still pending. Things are under process and it will take time to get all things on track”.

“As soon we get the final numbers of Ladakh Police we will start the functional promotion. Non-functional or in situ promotion was in our hand and we did promote a few of the officers”, he added.

Satish Khandare further added that J&K being a Union Territory with the legislature has some benefits.

Talking about the vacant post in Ladakh Police he informed that there are 800 posts vacant in Ladakh Police which will be filled only after the announcement of the new recruitment policy of Ladakh.

All the specialized wing of Ladakh Police such as security, CID, Traffic, SDRF are managed by the existing personnel through internal adjustment without any new recruitments. Over  burdened with work along with lack of promotion opportunities has further worsened the situation as many are going under depression.

The department is in a dire need of adequate manpower for smooth functioning.