In the last 20 years, 1080 KAS feeding service officers have been selected from Jammu against 538 from Kashmir; most of the top merit
positions have been bagged by the Jammu candidates
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
JAMMU: Attribute it to the unceasing political strife or whatever, the peaceful Jammu province has not only grabbed almost all the top merit positions but also stolen a march over the turbulent Kashmir province in nearly all the selections made by the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission (PSC) in the last 20 years. This notwithstanding the fact that Jammu’s population constitutes only 42 per cent of the State’s total population of 125.41 lakh against Kashmir’s 55 per cent and Ladakh’s 3 per cent.
According to the 2011 census, Jammu’s population was 53.50 lakh while as 69.07 lakh people lived in Kashmir and 2.74 lakh in Ladakh. The population of 125.41 lakh includes around eight to nine lakh non-permanent residents—including security forces personnel, Pakistani refugees, Central government employees and labourers living in the State continuously for over 6 months—who are not entitled to State government employment. These in totality are almost equally distributed between the two principal regions of Kashmir and Jammu and do not alter the regional population ratio and proportion.
Incredulously for the Valley population, the PSC’s official statistics indicate that the meritorious candidates from Jammu region have already dominated the combined competitive services, including Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) and Kashmir Police Service (KPS). Even if the Valley reverses the trend today or some day in future, public servants from Jammu will continue to grab most of the middle and top rung administrative, Police and bureaucratic positions for the next over 20 years.
Selections made by the PSC from 1995 to 2014 make it clear that as many as 1,080 candidates have been picked up for KAS from Jammu and just 50 per cent of the number i.e. 538 from Kashmir. Twenty-four candidates have been picked up from Ladakh. Excluding in 1995, when Rifat Jabeen from the Valley stood on top of the merit list, all the top positions in the subsequent 8 selections have been grabbed by the candidates from Jammu.
Batch-wise, 159 candidates for KAS have been selected from Jammu in 1995 against only 98 from Kashmir and 3 from Ladakh. In subsequent batches, the ratio between Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions was 155:58:2 in 1999, 104:30:02 in 2002, 108:28:05 in 2005, 239:152:07 in 2009, 94:92:03 in 2010, 108:32:02 in 2011, 39:25:00 in 2012 and 74:23:00 in 2013.
The KAS selections for the vacancies notified in the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 are currently in progress and likely to be completed in the next 6 months.
In all, 1,956 candidates have been selected since 1995 for the posts of combined competitive services (KAS/KPS), Munsiffs, Assistant Directors in Economics and Statistics (Planning), Range Officers Grade-I and Assistant Conservators of Forest (ACF). Of them, the lion’s share of 1291 has gone to Jammu and Kashmir has got less than 50 per cent i.e only 632 posts. Ladakh has bagged 33 posts.
As regards the Munsiff selections, 28 candidates have been picked up from Jammu, 5 from Kashmir and none from Ladakh in 1998. Subsequently, 30 candidates have been picked up from Jammu, 14 from Kashmir and one from Ladakh in 2001, 17 candidates from Jammu, 16 from Kashmir and two from Ladakh in 2008 and 27 candidates from Jammu, 9 from Kashmir and two from Ladakh in 2012.
In the one-odd selection of ADs Planning in 2009, as many as 68 have been picked up from Jammu, 23 from Kashmir and four from Ladakh.
In the five selections of RO Grade-I and ACF in the last over 26 years (all made from 2007 to 2013), 41 candidates have been selected from Jammu, 27 from Kashmir and none from Ladakh.
Even in all the non-KAS selections, with the exception of RO Grade-I in 2007 and 2013, all the top merit positions have gone to Jammu region.
Chairman PSC Lateef-uz-Zaman Deva maintained that all the gazetted posts are in State cadre and none of the selections is made on the basis of region, religion and other considerations. “This is an open competition. All the candidates are selected on the basis of their merit in written and viva voce. It is possible that all the candidates selected belong to one region and the other two regions draw blank. We will be completely helpless in that situation”, Deva told STATE TIMES.
The only relief for Kashmir is that the Valley has grabbed more IAS/IPS positions than Jammu in the national level selections made by the Union Public Service Commission from 2008 to 2016. That includes one IAS topper, Dr Shah Faesal, in 2009 and one runner-up, Athar Aamir-ul-Shafi Khan, in 2016. However, most of them have got either non-J&K states or other Central services.
