NPP protests outside Public Service Commission;Regional bias in selections to be fought tooth and nail: Harsh

 STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Alleging malpractices, nepotism, corruption and regional discrimination with Jammu in the process of selections conducted by PSC for the post of Assistant Professors in various disciplines in the Department of Higher Education, a battalion of Panthers Party activists led by Harsh Dev Singh, Chairman JKNPP and Yash Paul Kundal State President Young Panthers along with scores of aggrieved aspirants held a protest outside Public Service Commission (PSC) against the biased selection process to government services. While addressing the media, Harsh said that several deputations of educated youth of Jammu comprising PhDs and MPhils who represented to him had alleged huge regional bias in recruitments made by PSC in the recent past.
He said that the select lists of lecturers and Assistant Professors issued by the PSC during the last around two years as presented by various delegations revealed abysmally low share of Jammu region in the said recruitments and demonstrated the highly biased nature of selections.
He said that it was ironical that despite a higher proportion of Jammu region candidates getting shortlisted for the purpose of interviews, their share in the final select lists was negligible. He regretted that the alleged bias and prejudice in the selections had not only demoralised the aspiring Jammu youth but sparked colossal outrage which needed immediate attention of the government and the PSC.
Lamenting the deprivation of Jammu youth in selections despite tall pronouncements of government on equitable treatment, Singh made a particular mention of the recently published select list of Assistant Professors in the discipline of Commerce in which mere 13 posts went to Jammu region out of 58 and the rest were dished out to Kashmir. He regretted that earlier select lists also figured that out of 34 candidates in History, nine belonged to Jammu region, seven candidates out of 26 in Physics, nine in Psychology out of 27 and likewise in other subjects.
Referring to yet another obnoxious aspect of the selections of Assistant Professors, he said that the PSC had called experts from certain selected universities only to the exclusion of other prestigious universities of the country.
He pointed out that experts for interviews were called mainly from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), Barkatullah University and Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU).
And further there were several instances where such experts had earlier acted as guides of several selected candidates in their research work thus raising question marks over the credibility of the selection process, he lamented. He cautioned the State Government, the PSC and the mandated leaders of Jammu region in particular to ensure justice to the youth by ensuring them a fair deal in the selection process or else Panthers Party along with the aggrieved young fraternity would launch a mammoth agitation against the system to teach them a befitting lesson. Harsh demanded installations of CCTVs during the PSC interviews for better transparency and to check the malpractices in the recruitment so that the meritorious and deserving candidates were selected in fair manner as per their merit and knowledge.
Disconcerted over the discrimination meted out to educated unemployed youth of Jammu region, Kundal said that the BJP leaders in a bid to keep their Valley masters in good humour had colluded with its ally in providing ex-gratia and government jobs to the NoKs of slain subversives and militants including thousand of stone pelters responsible for Kashmir unrest. He wondered over the ‘black governance’ of sinister alliance where educated youth of Jammu Pradesh were left in lurch while the militants and criminals in Kashmir were glorified and provided employment with honour.
Among those who spoke on the occasion included Rajesh Padgotra, Gagan Pratap, Purshotam Parihar, Nirmal Kishore, Partap Singh, Parduman Singh, Kailash Mohan, Mohinder Singh, Rajesh Gondhi, Raj Kumar, Udhayveer, Gurcharan Singh, Mangal Singh, Soni Sambyal, Ritika Dogra, Sumeet Kour, Neetu Mahajan, Ajay Kumar, Pallavi Mahajan, Rimpy Gupta and Anuradha.