Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat
The politics over Governments recruitment policy continues from years. Earlier it was NC-Congress coalition Government which came out with a harsh Government recruitment policy during its tenure.The BJP and PDP who were in opposition that time had opposed the said policy. Finally Omar Abdullah Government revoked the said policy. Now the present Government has come out with a similar policy which they were opposing 5 years back. J&K’s new recruitment policy announced several months back vide SRO 202 is gaining criticism. Newly appointed young men and women are opposing this policy with protests being held every now and then in Srinagar , Jammu and other major towns of state. This is not only an unjust policy of Government but it violates the new Minimum Wage Rules of J&K Government as well.
As per the new recruitment rules of Government of Jammu and Kashmir, every new non gazetted appointee is entitled to the minimum pay scale along with grade pay (7000-8000) applicable to the post against which he /she is appointed. However, he / she shall be entitled to annual increment and all allowances (HRA, DA,CCA) only after successful completion of his/her five years service on consolidated salary. The newly appointed Junior Engineers , Junior Assistants , Police officials etc will be getting salary between Rs 7000 to 8000 per month for 5 long years which is totally injustice with the educated youth.
Violation of Minimum Wage Rules
Forthe first time since 2013, J&K Government approved a hike in ‘Minimum Wages’ for skilled and unskilled labourers, and administrative/ministerial labour.Chairing the meeting of State Advisory Board on Revision of Minimum Wages on October 4th last year, Minister of Finance and Labour& Employ-ment, Dr Haseeb Drabu approved the hike in ‘Minimum Wages’ for ‘unskilled’ labour from Rs 150 to Rs 225, a hike of 50 percent while in case of skilled labour, wages was hiked from Rs 225 to Rs 300, an increase 55.55 percent. Labour Department has abolished the category of ‘semi-skilled’ labour while ‘highly-skilled’ category has been introduced for which rate has been fixed at Rs 400 / day.
In case of administrative/ ministerial staff, wages have gone up from 200 to 325, a hike of 62.5 percent. An engineering graduate or post graduate degree holder is said to be highly skilled person and as per new Minimum Wages rules he or she should get at least Rs 12 000 (Twelve Thousand Rupees) salary a month, but paying these highly skilled degree holders mere Rs 7000 or 8000 a month is contradicting the Governments own minimum wages rules.
PROs ,PAs salary
PROs or PAs of Ministers and legislators are appointed on temporary basis. Their service automatically gets terminated once the term of Minister or MLA / MLC s term ends. The PROs / PAs work starts from 8 am and until late night they continue to work with ministers and legislators . But the remuneration they get is very meager. A PRO gets Rs 12000 a month and the PAs of MLAs / MLCs were getting Rs 6000 a month which has now been doubled few months back. These people work on gazetted holidays and Sundays as well. Recently the salary of PROs and Additional PROs (APROs) was hiked by Rs 600 (Six Hundred). At a time when salary of Ministers , MLA, MLCs has been almost doubled from Rs 85,000 to Rs 1.60 lakhs a month, isn’t it injustice with their own staff members who work for them day and night ? I am of this opinion that corruption flourishes under these circumstances. The PROs and PAs of Ministers and legislators resort to corrupt practices to sustain themselves. In rest of the states this is not the case. In Delhi Government MLAs PA gets more than Rs 25,000 a month and the PRO / OSD is entitled to Rs 50,000 or more a month. In Goa the Consultants appointed by Ministers get Rs 1.50 lakhs a month.
The anti youth policy vide SRO 202 is only applicable to non gazetted employees and gazetted cadre is not covered under the this policy .Around 50% of the state’s budget is spent on the salaries and pensions of the State Government employees. This amounts to the major portion of the state’s annual budget . Cash starved Jammu & Kashmir has always been dependent on New Delhi for funds allocation as state is not able to generate its revenue in different sectors . J&K obviously is not in position to bear the burden of new recruitments in various Government departments of the state. The uncontrolled increase in the number unemployed youth is a matter of concern for the Government , so to create more so called employment avenues and check the deficiency of staff in Government department’s the new recruitment policy was created . The Government actually wants to hire educated bonded labourers in its offices which even violates its minimum wages rules.
NRHM, Contractual lecturers, Pvt school teachers
MD, MS, MBBS, MPhil and PhD degree holders are being made to work like coolies and in return are paid peanuts. It is the same Government which was too much concerned for un employed degree holders while the election manifesto (vision document) was being drafted for the 2014 Assembly elections. We have hundreds of NRHM doctors, paramedics and 10 +2 and college lecturers (contractuals) who are made to work from dawn to dusk but in return are paid mere 8000 to 16000 Rs per month . How humiliating it is for a contractual or NRHM doctor who draws 50 % less salary than a permanent Nursing Orderly (NO) or a Sweeper who also works in the same hospital ? Similarly a peon posted in a Higher Secondary School or a Degree College gets 3 to 4 times more salary than what is paid to a contractual lecturer there. It is these contractual , NRHM doctors or lecturers who actually run our peripheral hospitals, Higher secondary schools or degree colleges. Leaving aside the Government’s apathy with them, even the permanent staff members from top to bottom treat them as untouchables and make them work like animals. How sad it is that a female contractual staff members are not even entitled to maternity leave. The situation in private schoolsis much worst. Private institutions do not follow the guidelines of Minimum Wages Rules.
Conclusion :
PDP lead Government had promised to provide better job opportunities for the youth in state , outside state and abroad. Hundreds of youth from J&K are working in various parts of India and abroad , but even 1% of such youth haven’t been provided any assistance by the J&K Government. The new recruitment policy is going to increase migration of youth from J&K in search of jobs which will lead to many social and psychological problems . Instead of providing better job opportunities, the new recruitment policy is a threat for the future of our educated jobless youth. The new job policy is definitely going to ruin the career of our young generation. The matter needs to be addressed and people especially the civil society and media need to build a pressure on the Government to revoke this anti youth policy which even violates the Government’s new Minimum Wage Rules.
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