Prof Rattan Lal
This pertains to the so-called ‘New Recruitment Policy’ which stands announced vide Special Recruitment Ordinance, 2015 and which has the approval of the State Cabinet and which now awaits the formal assent of the Governor. Before the earth-shaking consequences of this Ordinance are laid threadbare, one important question the State Government needs to answer to the total satisfaction of the people is: why wasn’t this brought for open debate and discussion in the legislature when its session concluded barely a few days back? Ordinances or justified, in a democratic polity, only when there are compelling reasons for so doing and the urgency is one such where one cannot wait for the next session to be convened. In all other circumstances the politics of ordinances is barely a ploy to thrust a piece of legislation on an unwilling populace. In other words, all ordinances brought forth by Governments in hush-hush manner are subversion of democratic institutions and must therefore be unequivocally condemned by all awakened sections of the society in particular and the masses in general.
One is not amused at the manner in which the youth of the State are sought to be dealt with under the draconian provisions of this Ordinance. A better pill is being propped on to their mouths which is in essence poisonous and well-designed to trample their most genuine aspirations. Under the provisions of this new Ordinance, all appointments in future will be made on contractual basis- both gazetted and non-gazetted. The blade of the new Ordinace has spared the necks of the young job-seekers to the extent that those jobs which have already been referred to SSRB and PSC shall not be affected by the provisions of this new Ordinance. At the same time the scope and reach of SSRB and PSC has been shrunk with the sinister motive of legitimizing backdoor entries in State services. This puts a big question mark against the entire process of recruitments in the State. Has this Ordinance any safety guard mechanism against the huge possibility of miscarriage of justice or trampling down of the interests of the deserving and the meritorious young men and women of the state who are looking helplessly at how callously their interests are being undermined.
As if all this isn’t recipe for complete disaster for the youth, Government has made provisions in the said Ordinance to authorize 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’, as disclosed by the Minister of Education, Nayeem Akhtar in a press statement after the conclusion of Cabinet meeting held on 18 April, 2015. This provides a safe legal cover for all kinds of irregular and unjustified appointments which the Government might choose to make.
Another sinister method behind this madness is that Government appears desperate to legitimize all contractual appointments made in the past, most of them through backdoor entry. It is estimated that a huge percentage of contractual employees whose services are being sought to be legitimized are from the Valley whereas a mere sprinkling belongs to Jammu region. Now is it a step towards minimization of regional disparities or is it a well-orchestrated attempt to reward illegal entrants in State services at the cost of the meritorious and the most deserving ?
The only face of this obnoxious peace of superimposed legislation is that some attention has been given towards strengthening the human resource infrastructure in rural and remote areas of the State. Provision has been made that the recruitments shall be made district-centric. This will certainly give a new lease of life to schools, colleges, dispensaries for which physical infrastructure does exist but manpower doesn’t. By making it compulsory for the new appointee to give first seven years of their contractual service to these remote pockets of the state, the Government has decidedly shown farsightedness and courage. However, what remains to be seen is how well this plan of action is translated on to the ground.
All is not said. It is just the beginning of the debate. The stakes involved are formidably high and unaffordable by any awakened society. It is not the sole concern of the columnists or opinion makers. All sections of the society including lawyers, doctors, engineers, teachers, parents of the prospective job seekers and the unemployed youth should stand up against the dehumanizing and outrageous legislation and do all they can to generate a body of positive opinion so that the nefarious designs of all negatively configured forces are defeated much before the process of recruitments in the State services doesn’t get irreversibly distorted.
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