The practice of employing the persons in government jobs/daily wagers/casual workers/seasonal workers in lieu of giving their proprietary land for the construction of any government infrastructure to the Governments Departments of the Jammu and Kashmir, known as land donors, is going on since long.
SRO 181 of 1988 dated June 1, 1988, issued by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, prescribed that the appointment of one member of the family who are left with 50% or less of their agricultural land on account of the same having been acquired by the Government for public purpose, shall be made without any reference to the Recruitment Board concerned, against any post available at the lowest rank of the cadre for which a person is eligible. This SRO does not prescribe that the land so given should have been given free of costs or having not accepted the amount of compensation to get its benefit. The purpose was to rehabilitate the family by giving him employment in addition to the compensation the family has received because of loosing the permanent source of livelihood of the family for the next generations to come. However, this SRO was later on rescinded vide SRO 214 of 1991 dated 11th July, 1991.
No doubt SRO 181 of 1988 was rescinded, yet the practice of engaging the persons in lieu of the land continued and is still continuing. The only difference is that previously the owner was entitled to compensation and employment also provided his family is left with 50% of the land or less thereof.
The field officers/officials adopted a novel method of acquiring land free of cost and without paying any compensation from the owner after assuring him that one of his family members would be give employment. This was a short cut method of utilizing the funds sanctioned for the project by the Department and the contractor.
This verbal assurance never proved successful and the owner felt deceived by the Departmeent and the contractor. Even the Government admitted the practice of giving verbal assurances and acquiring the land for public purposes. In this behalf the PHE/I&FC Department of the Government of J&K issued Circular No; 30/PW/HYD of 2012 dated April 3, 2012 which mentions that cases of the land donors of the PHE/I&FC Department are being processed/ forwarded by the Chief Engineers haphazardly and also issued some guide lines for processing/forwarding such cases to the Administrative Depart. The Department started processing the cases of eligible persons for their engagement in lieu of land.
The files remained pending in the Administrative Department but no one was appointed/engaged in the Department in lieu of land. In 2017, the Finance Department of the J&K Government framed rules in the shape of SRO 520 dated 21st December, 2017. As per Rule 11 (b) land donors who have donated their land free of cost to the Government shall be eligible for engagement as casual Workers on the recommendations of a Committee to be constituted in the concerned Administrative Departments and to be headed by the Administrative Secretary concerned and the Administrative Department shall issue orders of the engagement in favour of the applicant. Some conditions were laid down to be fulfilled by the land donors. One of the conditions laid down was that the minimum land donation for qualifying for this benefit should be one kanal of proprietary land.
All the formalities have been completed and the cases are pending before the Administrative Departments but the orders for their engagement as casual workers are not issued. The process started in 2012 and then extended in 2017 has not reached its finale culmination. In this process many eligible persons have become over aged. They are deprived of the employment of even as a casual worker despite the fact that land has been taken free of costs from them.
Raghu Nath Thakur, Sounder, Dachhan, Kishtwar
