*All future appointments to be made on contractual basis
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 19: In a significant decision, the State Government today announced a new Recruitment Policy whereby appointments against Gazetted and Non-Gazetted vacancies would be made on contractual basis. However, the decision will not be applicable to the posts, which have already been referred to the recruiting agencies for making selections.
Announcing the decision taken by the State Cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, here today, Education Minister, Naeem Akhtar told media persons that the persons appointed on contractual basis under the new Recruitment Policy would be regularised after putting in 7 years of satisfactory service.
He said the decision would help the Government to fill the vacancies of Assistant Surgeons, Lecturers and Teachers from amongst the local human resource at the district level and the selected persons will have to work in the said area during the term of their contractual engagement. This will help the Government to cope up with the manpower shortage in these crucial sectors in the remote and far-flung areas of the State.
Mr Akhtar said the policy paper for making contractual appointments at the district level envisages a transparent and merit-based fast-track process of selection for filling up key posts at the cutting edge level to tone up the delivery of public services.
He said to facilitate operationalization of the new Recruitment Policy at the earliest, Jammu and Kashmir Special Recruitment Ordinance-2015 was approved by the Cabinet which would now be submitted to the Governor for issuing the Ordinance.
Enumerating the broader parameters of the draft J&K Special Recruitment Ordinance, 2015, Mr Akhtar said it authorizes the Government to exempt certain posts or class of posts from the purview of the J&K Public Service Commission and the Services Selection Board.
The Ordinance empowers the Government to lay down a policy for making appointments against the notified posts on regular/contractual basis in the prescribed manner. Moreover, it empowers the Government to prescribe the mode of selection for such notified posts. The Ordinance also provides regularization of the persons, appointed on contractual basis on the completion of seven years of continuous contractual service.
The Ordinance lays down constitution of an ‘Empowered Committee’ in the Finance Department for considering the cases of contractual appointees eligible for regulation and for making recommendations in this regard. “The proposed legislation provides for repeal of the J&K Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act, 2010, with a saving provision in order to protect the regularization of adhoc, contractual, consolidated and temporary appointees who are eligible for such regularization under that Act”, Naeem Akhtar said.
The proposed Ordinance provides that the posts which have already been referred to the designated recruiting agencies—J&K Public Service Commission and the Services Selection Board, shall, however, be filled up by the concerned recruiting agencies by following the existing procedure of making selections. Some categories of posts, which are to be filled up through the competitive examinations like the J&K Civil Services (Judicial) and J&K Administrative Services, to be conducted by the J&K Public Service Commission, shall be exempted from the application of the proposed Ordinance.
The Cabinet also approved relaxation of norms to ensure that maximum number of farmers whose agriculture and horticulture produce is damaged due to natural calamities are entitled to relief under SDRF.
The Cabinet decided to bring down the slab for entitlement to relief under SDRF from the existing 50% to 33% damage to crops and other produce due to rains and other natural calamities. Similarly, the rate of compensation has also been increased for various categories of damages.
The Cabinet also took stock of the losses to standing crops and fruit trees on account of the recent heavy rains and asked the Revenue Department to work out the damage assessment on war-footing and project it to Government urgently so that relief is provided to the affected farmers in terms of amended SDRF norms.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet accorded sanction to the transfer of State land measuring 61 kanals and 15 Marlas situated at village Jaganoo, in Udhampur district to the J&K Technical Education Department for construction of a Government Polytechnic College.
The sanction was also accorded to the enhancement of “Ration Money Allowance” in favour of Non-Gazetted Staff in Prisons Department and Fire and Emergency Services Department, J&K from Rs 600 to Rs 1000 per person per month with effect from April 1, 2015.
A presentation was also made before the Cabinet regarding the digitization of all the revenue records in the State.
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