Fazal Khan
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Mar 8: The erstwhile National Conference-Congress regime rehabilitated at least 200 officers post retirement from 2009 to 2014 in Jammu and Kashmir and made a mockery of its own order about imposing a blanket ban on the re-employment in the state.
Services of the bureaucrats were extended due to them enjoying political patronage and they being close to the people in power. "On the other hand Omar led government failed to fill up the thousands of vacancies and kept the youth busy by providing them with contractual jobs," sources told Early Times.
They said former Regional Transport Officer Srinagar Muhammad Anees was given extension as he happened to be the husband of the NC legislator from Habba Kadal Shameema Firdous. Like him many others, including former Chief Secretary SS Kapur, Professor M Y Qadri, Prof Abdul Wahid Qureshi, former Superintendent Engineer of the Power Development Corporation, A R Tak, former Director General (Economics and Statistics) G A Qureshi, the former Chief Engineer, Electric Department, T K Koul, Chief Engineer (Civil) BS Jamwal, Chief General Manager, PDC, K L Bhat, Chief Engineer Pawan Kumar, the former Deputy Director, State Motor Garages, Abdul Hakeem, the former Director (Agriculture), Jammu, Ajay Khajuria, Private Secretary of the Chief Electoral Officer Jagdish Raj Gupta, the Chairman of the Lakes and Waters Development Authority, IrfanYaseen, Ravi Magotra, former DG, Accounts and Treasuries, Rashmi Kashyap, former Director, Resources and Institutional Finances, SKA Qadri, former Director General, AA&M, Jatinder Kumar Gupta, former Special Secretary, Kuldeep Kumar Raina, former Deputy Superintendent, Mushtaq Ahmad Wani, the former Deputy Secretary, State Information Commission, former Law Secretary Farhat Tasneem, former Secretary (Revenue) KachooIsfandyar Khan, Thakur Shah, former Secretary of the State Human Rights Commission, Tariq Ahmad Banday, the former Deputy Registrar, State Accountability Commission, Dinesh Maini, the former Director of the Forensic Sciences Laboratory, Inayatullah Khan and Harnam Chand Bhagat, former Deputy Director were given extension due to their political influence.
Sources revealed that in 2013 at least 40 top bureaucrats were given extension. "Had Omar Abdullah led regime not extended the retirement age from 58 to 60yrs for the state government employees in 2014 influential people had prepared a long list of their favourite babus whose services were set to be extended.
The new PDP-BJP dispensation which took over the reins of the state recently won't come under pressure to re-employ any of the top bureaucrats for at least one more year as erstwhile regime by enhancing the retirement age in 2014 has put an embargo on the extensions temporarily.
Sources said the new Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has asked the General Administration Department to formulate a comprehensive retirement policy to ensure that none of the officials are granted extension after retirement. "The new regime wants to ensure that order about imposing a blanket ban of the re-appointments is implemented in letter and spirit to ensure that influential officers bow out gracefully," sources added.
They said the new regime has asked the top officials to come up with a concrete proposal to absorb the youth on full time basis rather than exploiting them by providing them contractual jobs. "The Education department is the glaring instance of adhocism as young men and women are employed as contractual teachers and lecturers and are made to work at par with the people who are permanent. After the session is over these youth are shown the exit door. "Former Deputy Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Tara Chand, who was the Education Minister in the ousted NC-Cong regime, was instrumental in promoting contractual culture in the Education Department. The youth who were given these temporary jobs had to grease the palms of the officials before being appointed," said a source. "Contractual industry had become a big money spinner in the erstwhile regime as every year thousands of jobless youth were first appointed and then shown the door," the source added.
The new Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, according to the sources has asked the heads of all the departments to take immediate steps to get rid of this contractual culture and the practice of reemploying retired officials. "In coming days there is every possibility of new government finding ways and means to ensure that system is put at place and wrongs committed by the previous regime are set right," sources added. |
