J&K Khidmat Centre Association rues official apathy

J&K Khidmat Centre Association addressing a press conference in Srinagar on Wednesday. —Excelsior/Shakeel
J&K Khidmat Centre Association addressing a press conference in Srinagar on Wednesday. —Excelsior/Shakeel

Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Apr 28: The Jammu & Kashmir Khidmat Centre Association today criticised the authorities for their continuous indifference as they alleged that they have been left to fend for themselves with no support whatsoever.
Addressing a press conference here, President of the Association Tehseen Hussain Mugloo said that the most among them left best of other career opportunities by seeing the brightness in this project.
“Highly educated youth were selected under defined criteria of selection, majority of us have crossed the maximum age limit and are not eligible for any other recruitment process,” he said.
Notably, the Khidmat Centres were established by J&K Bank in 2009 under National e-Governance Programme, however, as of now, the owners of these Kidmat Centres have been left high and dry.
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“Most among us left best of other career opportunities by seeing the brightness in this project. Highly educated youth were selected under defined criteria of selection, majority of us have crossed the maximum age limit and are not eligible for any another recruitment process,” he said.
They said that keeping this all in view, we approached bank authorities especially the Chairman, “but he is not ready to meet us even completing formal procedures for his appointment on the repeated basis either to devise a permanent settlement policy or routing of services promised by bank mentioned in Master Services Agreement in the assigned role of Bank as Service Centre Agency,” they said.
The Kidhmat centre owners said that the matter is of great introspection and it has come to the fore that they neither are ready to devise a permanent settlement policy nor routing of services through our centres.
They said that the services in banks domain have kept on hold just like Aadhar Enrolment Centres, e-Stamping. Electricity bill collection for which they put extraordinary efforts from last 12 years for its routing through their centres too was stopped despite formal orders from the government end.
“The real objectives of this project have been diminished by J and k Bank for the bank’s interests,” they said, adding that they will fight till the resolution of their demands.