New Delhi: The new political map of India has been released by the Union minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday showing the 28 states and nine Union Territories including the recently-created Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Singh tweeted the picture of the new map along with a caption that read: “New Map showing the Union Territories of #Jammu & #Kashmir and # Ladakh, as these exist after 31st October 2019 (sic).”
The two Union territories were carved out of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in accordance with the Central government’s August 5 decision to revoke the special status of the state under Article 370 and bifurcate it into two UTs.
The two UTs came into existence on October 31, on the occasion of the 144th birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who was behind the merger of over 560 princely states into the Union of India.
The new map also shows the three districts which are under Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) namely, Muzaffarabad, Punch, and Mirpur.
While the Ladakh Union Territory consists of two districts Kargil and Leh, the Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory comprises 20 districts including Muzzarfarabad, Mirpur and the area of Poonch, which are under PoK.
In a gazette notification, the government also enumerated the territories in Leh district as: “Gilgit, Gilgit Wazarat, Chilas, Tribal territory and Leh and Ladakh, except the present territory of Kargil.”
The order was called the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Removal of Difficulties) Second Order, 2019.
The Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will have a legislature like Puducherry, while Ladakh will be a Union Territory without a legislature like Chandigarh. Both will be headed by separate Lieutenant Governors.
The Lieutenant Governors of the newly formed Union Territories were sworn in on Friday, along with the Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court. The central government has appointed serving IAS officer of Gujarat cadre Girish Chandra Murmu as the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, and retired bureaucrat of Tripura cadre Radha Krishna Mathur as the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh.
