Jammu and Kashmir Has the World's Highest Railway Arch Bridge, a 90-Seat Assembly Elected in 2024 After a Ten-Year Gap and a Government That Changes Its Capital Twice a Year

The Chenab Rail Bridge in Jammu and Kashmir stands 359 metres above its river, and the Press Information Bureau calls it the world’s highest railway arch bridge. The Prime Minister flagged off the first Vande Bharat trains to Srinagar across it on 6 June 2025. The bridge sits in a territory that was reorganised on 31 October 2019 and elected its first Assembly in a decade in September and October 2024. The census figures below are from 2011, the latest published, because the next census is still under way.

A state became a Union Territory on 31 October 2019

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 received the President’s assent on 9 August 2019. It divided the former state in two. Section 3 made Kargil and Leh districts the Union Territory of Ladakh, without a legislature. Section 4 made the rest the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, with one. The Ministry of Home Affairs records 31 October 2019 as the day both came into existence. Our account of Article 370 seven years on covers the two presidential orders of 5 and 6 August 2019 that preceded the Act.

A Union Territory (UT) is an area the Union government administers directly, through an Administrator appointed by the President. In Jammu and Kashmir that Administrator is the Lieutenant Governor (LG). Section 13 of the Act applies Article 239A, the article that gives Puducherry its Assembly, to Jammu and Kashmir as well. For the other territories with legislatures, see our guide to how the Union Territories compare.

On 11 December 2023 a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, upheld the 2019 decision. LiveLaw quotes the judgment directing the Election Commission to hold elections to the Assembly by 30 September 2024 and adding that “Restoration of statehood shall take place at the earliest and as soon as possible.” The Supreme Court Observer reports that the majority did not decide whether converting an entire state into a Union Territory is permitted under Article 3. It relied on the Solicitor General’s statement that statehood would be restored in due time and left that question for a case in which it arises.

Ninety elected seats, a Lieutenant Governor and no upper house

The Act gives the Assembly a five-year term. It counts 114 seats, but under section 14(4) 24 of them stay vacant while the areas of the former state under Pakistani occupation remain so, leaving 90 filled by election. The Delimitation Commission, chaired by Justice (retd) Ranjana Desai, signed its final order on 5 May 2022, allotting 43 seats to the Jammu region and 47 to the Kashmir region. The 2023 amendment Act fixed seven seats for Scheduled Castes and nine for Scheduled Tribes, and The Week reported the tribal seats as a first for the territory. The same Act lets the LG nominate up to two members from the Kashmiri migrant community, one of them a woman, and one member for displaced persons from areas of the former state now under Pakistani occupation. The older provision for up to two nominated women, where women are inadequately represented, remains.

The elected government has narrower powers than a state’s. Under section 32 the Assembly may legislate on the State and Concurrent Lists, except entries 1 and 2, Public Order and Police, and Parliament’s own powers are untouched. The Council of Ministers may not exceed ten percent of the Assembly’s membership, the Chief Minister is appointed by the LG, and the Council answers collectively to the Assembly. Section 53 says the LG acts in his discretion on matters related to the All India Services and the Anti Corruption Bureau. Money bills need the LG’s recommendation, and he may assent to a bill, withhold assent or reserve it for the President. The Legislative Council, the former state’s upper house, was abolished by section 57, as our piece on which states have two houses notes.

In Parliament the territory has five Lok Sabha seats and four Rajya Sabha seats. It has 20 districts across 42,241 square kilometres, according to the Home Ministry, in two regions: the Kashmir Valley and the Jammu Region. Kashmiri, Dogri, Urdu, Hindi and English are its official languages. The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh serves both territories under section 75 of the Act.

The 2024 election ran in three phases, on 18 September, 25 September and 1 October, and results came on 8 October. Scroll described it as the first in ten years.

A Rs 2.86 lakh crore economy that leans on central grants

The territory’s Economic Survey, tabled in the Assembly on 5 February 2026, puts nominal gross state domestic product (GSDP, the value of goods and services produced in a year) at about Rs 2.86 lakh crore for 2025-26 on advance estimates, with real growth of 5.82 percent. A lakh crore is a trillion rupees. Services supply 61.02 percent of value added, industry 18.52 percent and the primary sector 20.45 percent, though farming and allied work employ 42.99 percent of the workforce.

Per capita income is estimated at Rs 1,68,243, against Rs 2,19,575 for India. Greater Kashmir, reading the Survey, reports that it grew 8.81 percent a year between 2019-20 and 2024-25, ahead of Haryana at 8.72 percent, Punjab at 7.46 percent and Delhi at 6.74 percent.

The 2026-27 budget, presented on 6 February 2026, projects GSDP at Rs 3,15,822 crore. PRS says central grants of Rs 58,218 crore make up 65 percent of revenue receipts, and the territory raises Rs 31,800 crore itself. It targets a fiscal deficit of 4.6 percent of GSDP, and outstanding liabilities were 48 percent of GSDP at the end of 2024-25.

Apples are the best-known crop. The Agriculture Production Minister told the Assembly in March 2025 that output was 20.40 lakh tonnes in 2022-23, 20.64 lakh in 2023-24 and 20.56 lakh in 2024-25. The budget extends a weather-based crop insurance scheme to apple and saffron.

Tourism has swung both ways. The Ministry of Tourism told the Lok Sabha that domestic visits rose from 113.15 lakh in 2021 to 230.13 lakh in 2024, then fell to 177.29 lakh in 2025. The Ministry gave no reason for the fall, and foreign visits dropped from 0.65 lakh to 0.36 lakh.

Two capitals, two seasons

The government of Jammu and Kashmir changes its seat twice a year. The Leaflet describes the Darbar Move: around late October the Civil Secretariat and most offices go from Srinagar to Jammu, where they work from November to April, and they return in late April, opening in Srinagar in the first week of May. The Leaflet dates the formal practice to 1872 under Maharaja Ranbir Singh. The Lieutenant Governor’s office deferred the move in April 2021, citing a Covid surge and the rollout of electronic offices, and All India Radio reported it resumed on 1 November 2025 after four years, with 39 offices shifting fully to Jammu. Cost has been the argument on both sides. All India Radio says the practice was scrapped to save Rs 200 crore a year. The Leaflet notes that the 2019 official figures it cites, which include Rs 1,436.81 lakh in employee travel allowance, are far smaller.

The High Court follows the same calendar. Its history page says that from May to the end of October the Chief Justice and the administrative wing sit in Srinagar, and from November to April in Jammu, while the court sections of both wings work all year. The page dates the court to 1928.

The Chenab Rail Bridge is a different kind of record. A PIB release of 29 April 2026 calls it, together with the Anji bridge, the backbone of the 272-kilometre Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link, and says the Katra to Srinagar Vande Bharat service would be extended to run from Jammu Tawi with 20 coaches instead of the original 8. Our piece on the Chenab bridge and the Kashmir rail link gives the engineering figures.

Statehood and the census come next

On 28 September 2026 the Assembly passed a resolution asking the Government of India for the immediate and urgent restoration of full statehood. UNI reports that it passed by voice vote, with every party except the BJP in support, and that the resolution also addressed autonomy and special status. The Chief Minister told the House that the Supreme Court’s direction to restore statehood “at the earliest” could not mean a wait of two years. The Union government’s position on timing, as the Solicitor General put it to the court in 2023, is that statehood will be restored in due time. The judgment set a deadline for the election but none for statehood.

Population figures will also change. The 1,22,67,013 residents counted in 2011 were 68,88,475 in the Kashmir Valley and 53,78,538 in the Jammu Region, per the Home Ministry. For Census 2027 the Press Information Bureau gives Jammu and Kashmir, like Ladakh and the snow-bound areas of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, a population reference date of 00:00 hours on 1 October 2026, five months before the 1 March 2027 date used elsewhere.