Two panels to probe illegal appointments

Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, May 24: The Government today formed two committees to probe alleged illegal appointments made in the School Education Department over the past 11 years.
Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand, who holds the Education portfolio, constituted the committees – one each for Jammu province and Kashmir province, which will probe into the illegal appointments from 2002 till date, an official spokesman said.
He said Director School Education of the respective provinces will be the chairmen of the committee while Deputy Director Planning, Chief Accounts officer, Principal District Institute of Education and Training and planning officers will be the members.
The committees were formed by the Deputy Chief Minister during a meeting convened to review the overall scenario of Education Department and the pace of progress of various on-going school complexes under RMSA and SSA.
Taking serious note of the complaint regarding illegal appointments in Budgam district, Tara Chand ordered an inquiry through State Vigilance Organisation to extract the facts.
He said Government will take stern action against the guilty after the findings.
While reviewing the construction work of school buildings, the meeting decided to hire the services of third party monitoring group to supervise the pace of progress and to ensure quality standards.
The meeting was informed that Government has already taken up third party evaluation of the damages caused to school infrastructure in various districts of Jammu division due to recent earthquake.
The matter with regard to creation of number of vacancies due to recent promotion of teachers also came under discussion and Deputy Chief Minister directed the officers to take immediate steps to fill these vacancies so that the studies of the students do not hamper, the spokesman said.
Tara Chand also directed the heads of departments to make assessment of other available vacancies and take immediate steps for recruitment against these vacancies.
He said zero pendency should be assured so that the department of education functions smoothly and quality of education is upgraded.