J&K’s new job policy in limbo as Guv returns ordinance

Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 24

Governor NN Vohra today returned the Jammu and Kashmir Special Recruitment Ordinance-2015 on the new recruitment policy -- recently formalised by the ruling PDP-BJP coalition -- to the state government, raising certain queries on its objectives and viability.

Highly placed sources in the government said that they have received the ordinance sent back by the Governor after he raised queries on the objectives and viability of the policy. The Jammu and Kashmir Special Recruitment Ordinance-2015 was approved by the Cabinet on April 19 and it was later submitted to the Governor.

The government adopted the ordinance mode to facilitate operationalisation of the new recruitment policy to make fast-track appointments against gazetted and non-gazetted vacancies on contractual basis.

The services of persons appointed on contractual basis under the new recruitment policy will be regularised after putting in seven years of “satisfactory service”.

The minimum pay of an appointee during the contractual period will be between Rs 10,000 and Rs 12,000 per month.

The government had announced that the decision would help it fill around 12,000 vacancies of assistant surgeons, lecturers and teachers from among the local human resource at the district level wherein the selected persons would have to work in the area during the term of their contractual engagement. The government was going to make it a permanent recruitment policy.
Various political, social and student groups, including the National Conference, Congress, CPM, Panthers Party, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and National Students Union of India, had been opposing the new recruitment policy of the government and the youth across the state have also expressed their anguish over the move.
 They have observed that the policy would dampen the spirit of the recruitment agencies as their role would “substantially get diluted over a period of time”. They fear that instead of strengthening these institutions, the government would be creating parallel bodies which would be lacking in professionalism to carry out the selection process.