NC slams new recruitment policy

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 2

A day after the PDP-BJP government notified the new recruitment policy, the main opposition party, the National Conference (NC), lashed out at the policy, saying it was anti-youth. The party said all options would be considered, including challenging this “anti-youth” policy in court.

“The recruitment policy is an indication of the government’s insensitivity and arrogance. It is a cruel joke with those unemployed educated youth who had been promised that this policy would not be implemented,” NC spokesman Junaid Azim Mattu said in a statement.

Under the new policy, J&K plans to recruit 7,500 employees in four months and they will be regularised after five years. The new appointees will be paid basic minimum pay (pay band with grade pay) during the first five years of service. Mattu said the policy continued to be anti-youth and illogical and had a lot of grey areas which put the future of the unemployed youth in peril.

“First the government chose the route of an ordinance and sought the Governor’s approval. The Governor, in his wisdom and to protect the interests of the youth, rightfully returned the proposal to the government after raising specific objections to contradictions and anti-youth features of this policy,” he said.

“Now, after the Governor was involved in this process, the PDP-BJP government has not only ignored the objections raised by the Governor, but also sidelined his role, which was mandated by the ordinance route earlier. Ignoring the Governor’s role and unambiguous sidelining of the objections raised is not only fishy and unbecoming, but also reeks of arrogance and tyranny by this anti-youth government,” he said.

The NC spokesman said the party would stand by the educated unemployed youth of the state against this atrocious anti-youth policy.

“All options will be considered, including challenging this anti-youth policy legally. We are with the youth of the state in their protest against this injustice,” the NC spokesman stated.

CPM leader and Kulgam MLA Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami said the recruitment policy was a half-hearted exercise offering bleak career opportunities to the educated unemployed youth.

In a statement, Tarigami observed that the government had continued with abhorred contractualisation syndrome, in addition to unnecessary terms and conditions that had been put in new recruitment policy with a different nomenclature.