Mufti Sayeed allots portfolios to council of ministers

Jammu, March 3 (IANS) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on Tuesday assigned portfolios to his council of ministers, ending the suspense over sharing of portfolios between the ruling alliance partners PDP and BJP.

Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh (BJP) has been assigned the important portfolio of power development, housing and urban development.

Abdul Rehman Veeri (PDP) got horticulture, Hajj and Auqaf while Haseeb Drabu (PDP) got finance, labour and employment.

Chander Prakash (BJP) got industries and commerce.

Javaid Mustafa Mir (PDP) got revenue while Lal Singh (BJP) got health, medical education, ARI and training.

Abdul Haq Khan (PDP) got rural development, Bali Bhagat (BJP) got social welfare, forest, ecology and environment.

Syed Basharat Bukhari (PDP) will hold the portfolio of law, justice and parliamentary affairs and Sukhnandan Kumar (BJP) will manage public health engineering.

Altaf Bukhari (PDP) got public works, floriculture and parks.

Chowdhary Zulfiqar (PDP) got consumer affairs and public distribution and tribal affairs.

Sajad Gani Lone of the Peoples Conference got animal husbandry, science and technology.

Imran Raza Ali (PDP) got information technology, technical education, youth services and sports. Naeem Akhtar (PDP) got education.

All these ministers hold cabinet rank in the council of ministers.

The portfolio assignment order specifies that all other departments/subjects not assigned to any of the above ministers shall remain with the chief minister.

Sayeed holds the all important portfolios of home and general administration.

Among the junior ministers, Chering Dorjay (BJP) will hold independent charge of the cooperative department while Abdul Ghani Kohli (BJP) will hold independent charge of the transport department.

The two women junior ministers, Priya Sethi and Asiya Naqash, will be in charge of the information and health departments respectively.