Shiban Khaibri
As a fall out of the drubbings in the recently held general elections by the NC led coalition Government of the State, certain “corrective” measures have been decided to be taken to woo the deserted vote pockets back into the fold of the National Conference. Within a few months, the people of the State are going to vote for the Assembly elections and the forceful segment of the electorate, the youth in a small way, find their main problem of unemployment being accorded some attention. The flagship schemes to take on the problem of unemployment by both the State Government and the Central Government launched from time to time in the State like “Himmayat”, “Uddan”, “Sher-i-Kashmir employment and welfare Programme for youth’ (SKEWPY) and followed by the popular – Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) are now being felt having proved ineffective because of the response deficit from the eligible youth. To call a spade a spade, if the results of the Lok Sabha elections would have been in favour of the ruling coalition, perhaps taking up for review, the new recruitment policy of the Government which was abysmally low in fixing the cost of labour employed by the State, would have been not in the list of the immediate priorities. Also disenchantment of the youth was not the only factor for the worst – ever poll debacle of the National Conference – Congress combine in the State, there were many, which could be discussed separately. However, why the employment schemes under reference virtually proved ineffective, again is a debatable point as the youth, especially valley centric , prefer a Government job to one in a private sector, shying job place mobility or earning ones livelihood under self employment generating schemes.
There were many lacunae in the new recruitment policy of the State Government which called for an overhaul of the entire scheme.
The cardinal principle of “equal pay for equal work” was missing in the recruitment policy which was implemented nearly more than two years back in the State resulting in treating the problem casually and only as an opportunity to filling in the formats of “yearly achievements ” in employment sector to present a cozy picture of the Government’s performance .It is strange that the need to scrap the recruitment policy , at the cost of repetition, was felt only to placate the angered youth and as an allurement for the ensuing Assembly elections just four months hence, instead on need based and economic factors or a step in the direction to minimize the number of unemployed, the number of whom is swarming year after year and at the moment could be any where between 6 to 7 lacs — an alarming situation, indeed.
A cursory look of the recruitment policy evidenced a dismal picture like for instance a post Graduate teacher was to be paid a monthly salary of nearly just Rs.4500 for first five years, a revenue official like a Patwari or a sub- inspector was to get only somewhere between Rs.2500 to Rs.4000 and the like. In other words, even after appointment, an employee was not getting the full salary otherwise under rules to which he or she would have been entitled. The reasons put forth by the Government have always been the same -“No budgetary allocation” or prevalence of a “cash crunch”. It is worth noting that the State pays more than 75% of its total earnings as salaries and pension to nearly 4 lakh State employees. Out of the State’s total budget of Rs.38600 crore, a paltry Rs.9300 crore is all that is left for developmental and infrastructural work annually. It is also a fact that many employees are not getting salaries in time and only after months together, the case of daily wagers being that of neglect, which itself speaks about the financial constraints of the Government. It banks on the Central assistance and funding under various heads like Special Plan Assistance. The State’s revenue expenditure which includes salaries, wages and pensions is largely Stated to be met from non plan funds. State’s planning and development department has been finding it not easy to manage payment of salaries to its employees. The State has no immediate tangible plans to remedy the situation.
In the backdrop of the unsatisfactory State of affairs of the revenues of the State Government, the recent decision of the cabinet to scrap the new employment policy needs to be analyzed. It needs to be recalled that only a year back, the State Government had announced a well knit policy to start recruitment at least for nearly 70 to 80 thousand jobs reported to be “lying vacant”. If some decisions are taken for the sake of some movement appearing to take place for filling up these posts, the dilemma again is how to manage budgetary support and liquidity of resources to arrange salaries and wages. On the other hand, is there any foolproof and complete information available on the State Government’s official website or any relevant portal in respect of how many vacancies were lying there to be filled up ? Has there been any survey or collating of correct information in respect of the total available vacancies and a time bound strategy of filling in those posts in a transparent way? Has there been any research work or any innovative measures taken to encourage a departure from the conventional desk job culture to a more productive vocational, technical oriented jobs scenario including encouraging groups for gainful employment through co-operatives, the need and demand for which could be found in the market? Has there been a shift from the erstwhile “State habit” of only recruiting teachers and police constables etc in an unplanned way to a realistic need based productive employment policy? The State Government must share the information with the public.
Under the rescinding of the fixed salary or stipend mode of the recruitment policy as per the recent cabinet decision, for clerical, subordinate staff and other non- Gazetted categories of the staff; the Finance Department has been directed to come out with proposals in this regard. Many posts too have been approved or created including setting up of new BEd colleges. The youth on the face of it, is feeling relieved over scrapping of the faulty recruitment policy which was detrimental to their immediate pecuniary needs and career progression? The question therefore is whether existing vacant posts in thousands were going to be filled up immediately and the “fruits” of the scrapping of the recruitment policy made to be tasted immediately before the ensuing Assembly elections or the whole exercise done to look nice cosmetically only to cash for votes in the Assembly elections and leave implementation on the next Government. Let sincerity be not the casualty and therefore trust be strengthened as a bridge between the people and the Government. Last but not the least , some bold steps, even unpleasant ones, have got to be taken by the Government to augment its revenues and earnings as a vast potential for healthy taxation lies unexplored and vast pockets of revenue generations have to be opened . Completely relying on Central assistance and even for payment of salaries may not become a habit, if not an addiction, of the State Government. The era of less governance and result oriented more performance has begun. Doing away with ostentatious unproductive Governmental spending is going to be the hall mark of the policy of the new Government at the centre.
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