*Search begins for suitable candidates
KT NEWS SERVICE SRINAGAR, June 11 : Revamping of Muslim Auqaf Trust (MAT) and the Public Service Commission (PSC) is giving headache to the coalition government in the state.
As a result of wayward thinking in the government, Mohammad Shafi Pandit is being shifted out from MAT as head of the Trust as the chairman of headless PSC.
Pandit's shifting out of MAT indicates that government is finding it hard to fulfill the declared objective of taking over of MAT from the control of National Conference (NC) and Abdullah family.
Pandit has been there for only for a few months and is being redrafted for PSC chairmanship.
This is seen as a sort of fire fighting arrangement to check the rot in the PSC.
Correspondingly it also reflects government's dissatisfaction with the affairs of the MAT resulting in change of dispensation.
Sources today confirmed that elusive search of PSC chairman is most likely to end at Pandit's proposed appointment to that post.
Consequently, MAT would be left without a head.
While taking over the MAT the government had claimed that it had a blue print to re-organise the Trust and re-orient its programme.
However, so far not much of either has been seen.
Evidently, the government is also sensing it and is opting for replacement of Pandit.
The affairs of the PSC have come under adverse spotlight against the backdrop of controversy over the recent selection of KAS candidates.
The acting chairman of the PSC Akhtar Murtaza who is on extension and is on the verge of his exit has entered into unseemly public controversy with finance and law minister Muzaffar Hussain Beig causing serious embarrassment to the coalition government.
It may be recalled that the coalition government had made numerous attempts but failed to find a chairman for the PSC.
Not only are the differences on this proposal between the coalition partners but also between senior cabinet ministers.
The issue has in the recent past generated considerable heat in the cabinet meetings.
At one point Pandit was selected as the chairman of PSC but apparently he refused to accept the responsibility.
Thereafter a consensus on the PSC chairman has been eluding the coalition government and now it appears that the choice is once again about to fall on the very same Pandit, who in the first instance had spurned the post.
The government has been under attack from National Conference on the taking over of MAT and Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) Soura.
The justification for the take over advanced by the government was that the affairs of this important religious institution were in a mess for want of proper management and guidance.
The change of MAT chairman within a month clearly shows that government is yet to make any headway in fulfilling the expectations it had aroused while snatching MAT from NC and Abdullah dynasty.