MUZAFFARABAD: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) cabinet on Thursday approved a more than Rs3.7 billion package for school and college education, alongside a series of wide-ranging decisions covering employee regularisation, institutional reforms and legislative amendments.

Meeting under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Faisal Mumtaz Rathore, the cabinet also extended the tenure of ad-hoc, temporary and contract employees by six months and approved their partial regularisation under the Regularisation of Ad hoc and Temporary Employees (Amendment) Act, 2026.

The education package envisages the creation of over 4000 posts across the higher and school education sectors. In higher education, 726 positions will be created at a cost of Rs 764.93 million for 20 new, 31 upgraded and 51 existing colleges. In the elementary and secondary sector, 259 posts will be created for 182 new primary schools, 2,692 for the upgradation of 653 schools, and 368 for existing institutions, with a total estimated cost of Rs2.97 billion.Apart from that, around 1415 posts will be shifted from schools with low enrolment to those with high enrolment and another 229 posts will be re-designated .

Among key structural decisions, the cabinet restored the Secretaries Service Rules, 2023, and approved amendments transferring the powers of the Environmental Tribunal and the Mirpur Development Authority’s appellate tribunal to district and sessions judges, citing low caseloads and the need to reduce expenditure.

The cabinet also approved amendments to the AJK Legal Practitioners and Bar Council Act, 1995, fixed the number of its members for four election cycles, and authorised the auditor general to audit government grants to the council. A law establishing a Centre of Excellence to counter extremism was also approved.

In the energy sector, amendments to the Electricity Act cleared the way for a private firm executing the 7.08MW Riali-II hydropower project in Muzaffarabad to lay transmission lines and evacuate electricity.

Reforms were also approved in public procurement, allowing the AJK Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) to hire permanent staff and engage consultants and experts on need basis, on the pattern of the federal body.

The cabinet enhanced the martyrs’ package, bringing financial benefits for martyrs’ families at par with Punjab, and approved the upgradation of encroachment inspectors from BPS-11 to BPS-15. Relaxation in the upper age limit for recruitment against the police martyrs’ quota was also granted.

In the higher education sector, the cabinet sanctioned one-time grants of Rs1.04 billion for the University of AJK, Muzaffarabad, and Rs188.88 million for the University of Bagh. It also approved the upgradation of Mirpur Institute of Medical Sciences into the Mirpur University of Allied Health Sciences to address shortages in allied health professionals.

The status of Women University Bagh was revised to allow the establishment of a boys’ campus, while a four-tier service structure was introduced to facilitate long-delayed promotions for librarians.

The cabinet further approved the adoption of the Nadra law in AJK, amendments to the Food Authority Act replacing the director with a director general as authority’s secretary, and changes to the Tajweed-ul-Quran Trust law to support seminary reforms, including honoraria for Qaris and the creation of a coordinator post.

On the administrative side, the cabinet allowed timber extraction from private forests on the recommendation of a committee.

Prime Minister Rathore also announced the cancellation of the Friday weekly holiday in government offices to facilitate budget preparations and other official business, a move endorsed by the cabinet. Educational institutions, however, will continue to observe Saturday as a weekly holiday.

The cabinet decided to defer to its next meeting proposals relating to the allocation of state land for mosques, educational institutions, a graveyard, an officers’ colony and a proposed university in Haveli Kahuta.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2026