Isfindiyar Khan
The government is using the youth as a scapegoat in solving their own fully or partially created financial or other problems, rather than tackling the real problem of their policies and implementation. From time to time youth specially the unemployed faced some discriminatory and irresponsible policies and they are used as tool to tackle their own created problems which the youth are obviously not responsible for. You can imagine the situation of youth in the State where the political instability and against the State movement is a common phenomenon. Here are some factual data which will depict the plight of youth; as per report, nearly 1,18,000 youth have applied for 5,632 vacancies for constable post, 70,000 application have been received for the post of 680 sub inspector, 26,000 application were received for the post of Special Police Officer(SPO) in September last year. Higher unemployment in the State which earlier stood at 24.6 per cent as compared to the national average of 13.2 per cent between 18-29 year of age as per the economic survey 2016. One of the disturbing image associated with Kashmir Valley in the recent past is those students joining hands with the stone-pelters. Some cannot be blamed for thinking that the situation in the State is perhaps at its worst in over a decade. The unrest in the Valley is not just about Azadi but owes its roots to socio-economic problems as well. And the New Recruitment Policy 2015 is adding fuel to the happenings in the all the regions of J and K State.
In April 2015, the PDP-BJP Coalition Government announced a New Recruitment Policy (NRP) where by the appointment against the gazetted and non-gazetted vacancies would be made on contractual basis. Announcing the decision taken by the State Cabinet, under the chairmanship of the then CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, the Education Minister, Naeem Akhtar said in a press conference that the policy paper for making contractual appointment at the district level envisage a transparent and merit based fast track process of selection for filling up key post. But I must admit that the Omar Abdullah Government was bit honest in their statement about their NRP-2011 that the policy was to curb the financial burden of the State, which obviously was not caused by the non-gazetted and lower salaried workers despite of this they have to bear the burden of NRP. But this Government (PDP-BJP) cleverly changed the bow but with the same arrow, didn’t explicitly said its because of financial burden of State and replaced the same with the name of fast-track recruitment.
While in 2011 NC-Congress Coalition Government came with NRP for non-gazetted post where the appointees were paid stipend insteat of salary for the first five year. NRP-2011 was approved by the State Cabinet under the chairmanship of the then CM Omer Abdullah in 2011 and according to this; New appointees for non gazzeted post were paid fixed salary equivalent to 50 per cent of basic pay for two years. For next three years he will get 75 per cent of basic salary. The period during which such employees receive fixed monthly salary, shall count for the purpose of all service benefits including seniority and pension compensation. But for five years they would not get any DA, HRA, and other allowance.
The decision came under huge criticism from different section of society particularly from student community. The same PDP and BJP leaders criticised that time. At that time the BJP Spokesperson and National Executive Jatindra Singh said, the 50 per cent salary rule or the NRP will alienate the youth and its totally injustice. In December 2013 one of the Non Profit organisation filed petition against the State in High Court, which resulted in some modification in the existing NRP 2011 rule. Finally in 2014 the decision to scrape the policy was taken as a part of course correction by the then CM Omar after his party NC debacle in Lok Sabha election 2014 in J and K. Omar Abdullah said it was one of the point highlighted by the youth across the State through emails to him which he has received as part of introspection process following the debacle in Lok Sabha polls in which NC-Cong coalition fail to win any of the six seats in the state.
What all these development mean the government is applying their method of experiments on the voiceless youths of the State, after they failed in their experiment, they came with a statement we have to use other methods and the earlier doesn’t work well, so be ready for another experiment for five years then we analyse your problem youths till then you have to suffer a bit. Same is being applied here by the PDP-BJP led government with their version of NRP-2015 which not only made less than half the of basic salary but also restrainted the new appointee to regularise in their service (contractual basis) for long five years and if they fail in their so called satisfactory testing lab they have to give up the service and all that.
Their version of NRP is infamously known as SRO-202. In its recommendation, CSC( Cabinet Sub Committee ) recommended the person appointed on contractual basis would be regularised after putting in five years of satisfactory service and with very low salary not more than Rs10,000 per month for non gazetted post and not more than Rs 20,000 per month for gazetted post.
I am also sure that this government will also go in an introspection process in coming years and will produce statements like the earlier one made as correction course. And We the Youth will always become a scapegoat to their correction measures and experiments. However I am optimistic in one sense when the students politics from college level to university level becomes a cluster and act as a real pressure group. Students should involve actively in political affair no matter how small issue is.
