Seasonal Departments of Kashmir

Kashmir is perhaps the only place in India where entire government departments behave like seasonal shops – they open briefly when nature or crisis forces them to, and then quietly shut down for the rest of the year, while continuing to draw full salaries, full authority, and full budgets – in return for part-time jobs.

This is not a metaphor. It is an administrative disease.

Kashmir has built a governance system where institutions are event-driven, not service-driven; where departments exist to respond, not to prevent; where files move all year, but work happens only for a few weeks.

The result is a strange paradox: Kashmir has too many departments and too little governance.

The Mechanical Engineering Department: Nine Months of Hibernation

Take the most obvious example – the Mechanical Engineering Department, responsible for snow clearance.

Every winter, Kashmir collapses. Roads block, ambulances get stuck, patients die, villages go dark. And suddenly this department becomes the most powerful institution in the Valley. Snow ploughs are paraded for photo-ops. Control rooms open. Officers hold review meetings. And so on and so forth.

Then March arrives. And the department vanishes. For nine months machines rust, operators sit idle, workshops close, and no alternative deployment or no secondary mandate is prioritized.

A department that consumes crores annually works actively for barely 60–70 days.

Flood Control: A Department That Wakes Up Only After Drowning

Flood Control & Irrigation exists almost exclusively between July and September. It becomes visible only when rivers overflow, embankments break, homes drown, and people climb rooftops.

Before floods? Silence. After floods? Files. Prevention? Almost none.

There is no continuous river mapping, no desilting calendar, no risk zoning, and no early-warning culture. It is a department designed to explain disasters, not prevent them.

Tourism Department: Summer Office, Winter Holiday

Tourism is one of the few sectors that could make Kashmir economically independent.

Yet the Tourism Department functions like a summer resort office – April to October: brochures, festivals, tweets, and November to March: dormancy.

Where is winter tourism planning, district-level product creation, village homestay ecosystems, pilgrimage circuits, and snow-based adventure economy?

Instead, tourism policy in Kashmir is: “Wait for tourists, manage crowds, then wait again.”

This is not a department. This is a reception desk.

Disaster Management Authority: Permanent Office for Temporary Thinking

The State Disaster Management Authority exists permanently, but its thinking is temporary. It activates only after earthquakes, floods, cloudbursts, snowstorms, and landslides.

There are no regular community drills, no village risk maps, no predictive modelling, and no school-based preparedness culture. It is a department that documents tragedy beautifully, but never trains society to avoid it.

Horticulture: A Department for Flowers, Not Farmers

Horticulture officers appear during blossom season, harvest season, and subsidy distribution. In between farmers are left alone to face price crashes, market exploitation, cold storage scarcity, transport failures, and insurance denial.

A sector that contributes thousands of crores to Kashmir’s economy is guided by a department that functions like a seasonal consultant.

Fire & Emergency Services: The Department That Exists Only When Something Is Burning

It becomes visible only when a house is already on fire, an entire market has burned down, a hospital ward is in flames, or a village has lost everything. Before fires? Silence. After fires? Condolences. Prevention? Almost nonexistent.

There is no systematic fire safety audit of old city areas, no annual inspection of electrical wiring in markets, no enforcement of building codes, no community-level fire drills, and no winter fire risk mapping (despite heaters, bukharis, and faulty wiring).

Fire services in Kashmir is not a safety institution. It is a post-mortem institution. It does not prevent fires. It documents them. It does not build resilience. It counts losses.

In a region where wooden structures dominate, power infrastructure is outdated, and winter heating is largely informal, fire Services should be one of the most proactive departments. Instead, it remains: a department that wakes up only after the ashes have settled.

Agriculture Department: A Department for Paper Farmers, Not Real Fields

The Agriculture Department in Kashmir is another classic example of a seasonal and ceremonial institution. It becomes visible mainly during sowing seasons, fertilizer distribution, and subsidy announcements.

Beyond that, its presence in real fields is almost symbolic. There is no continuous soil health mapping, no serious extension services, no field-based crop risk modelling, no strong farmer training ecosystem, and no market intelligence for price crashes.

The Agriculture Department in Kashmir does not function as a production system manager.
It functions as a scheme distribution office. It does not shape farming. It administers paperwork around farming.

In a region where food security, employment, and rural stability are deeply linked to agriculture, this department should be one of the most dynamic institutions. Instead, it remains seasonally relevant and structurally irrelevant.

The Core Disease: Event-Driven Governance

The deeper problem is not individual departments. The problem is a governance philosophy where Work begins after crisis, planning starts after damage, files replace fieldwork, and budgets reward existence, not impact.

In Kashmir, institutions are reactive by design. They wait for snowfall to start snow planning, floods to start flood policy, disasters to start disaster thinking, tourist inflow to start tourism.

This is like installing brakes after the accident.

Full-Time Salaries for Part-Time Jobs

Here is the brutal truth: Kashmir runs a full-time government for part-time governance.

The government pays year-round salaries, pensions, offices, vehicles, security, electricity, and maintenance, for departments that function meaningfully for 2–4 months a year.

This is not inefficiency. This is structural waste disguised as administration.

The Psychological Impact on Citizens

For ordinary people, this creates a permanent sense of abandonment. The department exists, but not when you need it. The office is there, but the work is seasonal. The authority is visible, but inaccessible.

People stop expecting services. They start managing on their own. This is how parallel systems emerge, private contractors replace the state, and trust collapses silently. Not with protest. But with resignation.

The Unspoken Reality: Kashmir Is Over-Administered and Under-Governed

We do not suffer from lack of departments. We suffer from departments that exist in time, but not in continuity. Offices are full. Impact is empty.

This is why Kashmir remains infrastructure-poor, is disaster-prone, is economically fragile, and is and socially exhausted.

Not because of lack of money. But because of misdesigned institutions. Kashmir has perfected this dangerous model in which there are permanent payrolls for temporary performance, crisis-driven departments in a disaster-prone society, and full authority without full responsibility.

Until this structure changes, no number of new schemes, new funds, new vehicles, or new slogans will matter. A society governed by sleeping institutions will always remain
awake in suffering.

The Reform Kashmir Desperately Needs: Multi-Seasonal Departments

If Kashmir wants to function like a modern society, it must abandon single-purpose seasonal departments. Every department must have primary role (seasonal) and the secondary role (off-season). The accompanying table below explains it further.

BOX

Re-deployment Matrix: Using Seasonal Staff All Year

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