Nothing short of revocation acceptable – Sagar, Nasir and Sakina
Srinagar April 25th, 2015: National Conference on Saturday said PDP’s continued arrogance on its anti-youth recruitment policy was a clear revelation of the party’s growing insensitivity towards the unemployed youth of the State. In a joint statement issued from NC Headquarters at Nawa-e-Subha Complex in Srinagar, Senior NC Leaders including NC General Secretary Ali Mohammad Sagar, NC Provincial President (Kashmir) Nasir Aslam Wani and NC Kashmir South Zone President and Senior Leader Sakina Ittoo castigated the BJP-PDP combine for playing a practical and cruel joke with around six lakh unemployed youth of the State who had been promised jobs by PDP in the run up to the elections.
“The anti-youth new job policy is not only bereft of any legal basis in how it sidelines all established norms and procedures of recruitment but is also deprived of a humane perspective of the day to day struggles of the State’s unemployed youth. We strongly oppose the proposed promulgation of an Ordinance to this effect by the BJP-PDP Government and have already submitted an official memorandum to the Honorable Governor in this regard. This is a brazen attempt by the PDP-BJP Coalition Government to bypass all well established mechanisms of recruitment agencies like Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission and State Services Selection Board and is hence an overt move to undermine the constitutional role of institutions, which is fraught with dangers of encouraging corruption, nepotism and exploitation of unemployed educated youth”, the NC leaders said in their joint statement.
The Senior NC Leaders said the anti-youth Job Policy proposed by the PDP-BJP Government is would encourage a tendency of biased pick-and-choose among job seekers, obviously in lieu of consideration and not necessarily as per their merit. “In turn this will usurp the legitimate rights of talented job seekers and be a great disservice to the educated, unemployed youth of the State. This will also impact the Government’s performance with merit taking a serious hit and applicants with lesser merit eventually ascending to key posts. The anti-youth policy does not spell out the future of those who may not find themselves in the good books of their controlling officers and local politicians and thus would be doomed to get terminated. In such a scenario, what will be the fate of these retrenched appointees, who may by then have become overage for Government employment? The policy is therefore bound to cause frustration to the youth in a period of time”, the Senior NC Leaders said while strongly opposing the proposed promulgation of the particular Ordinance.
“The previous government had evolved a mechanism of recruiting eligible candidates on permanent basis through credible and time tested institutions though there were checks and balances with regard to pay packages. For initial two years appointees were to get 50 per cent of basic pay and for next three years 70 per cent of basic pay. After five years of service, the appointees were to be placed in accredited pay-scales. The same was, however, withdrawn by the National Conference-Congress Coalition Government in due deference to the wishes of the unemployed youth of the State”, the NC Leaders said in their joint statement.
The NC Leaders expressed amusement over the fact that Senior Cabinet Minister of the PDP-BJP Government had been speaking in different voices over this anti-youth policy; some describing it a temporary measure to appoint 15,000 unemployed in ‘remote and far-flung areas’ and some terming it a permanent feature. “The clear misunderstanding within the Ministers speaks volumes of how they are moving forward on such a sensitive issue, which pertains to the future of our valued generations”, the Senior NC Leaders said while describing the Policy as exploitative and in violation of the fundamental rights.