Srinagar, Dec 17: The newly appointed Non-Gazetted employees of all the government departments Sunday held protest against the new recruitment policy of State Government at Press Colony Srinagar.
A large number of newly appointed employees assembled outside the Press Colony during the day and started protest demonstration. They were strongly opposing the new recruitment policy enacted by the Mehbooba Mufti Government and alleged that it was sheer exploitation of highly educated youth of the State.
Carrying banners and placards depicting their demands, the newly appointed Non-Gazetted employees were shouting slogans against the present PDP-BJP Govt and demanding withdrawal of new recruitment policy. They pointed out that in purview of the recruitment policy SRO-202 was implemented in June 2015 but this new policy seemed to be unfair for the educated youth of the State.
They said that government took a decision to regularise 60,000 daily wagers who have been victims of apathy of successive regime of governments, on the other hand it has turned the Non-gazetted employees recruited through proper channel (JKSSB) in its own tenure into daily wagers by making them to work at a meagre Rs 7000-8000 per month.
“The government has failed to safeguard the interests of highly educated youth. When the legislators could not survive with a salary of Rs. 80,000 and hiked it to Rs. 1.60 lakh, how can we survive with a meagre salary of 7000 when our parents have invested lakhs on our education we are not able to feed ourselves properly let alone feeding our family,” said Adil Ahmad one of the protestor,
Another employee Yasmeena said, “SRO 202 has abated the morale of the youth as the govt is making even the meritorious candidates employed through proper channel work for peanuts. According to the SRO 202 employees the govt has fixed a wages of Rs 400 per day for skilled labourers while as the govt. is itself paying its newly recruited employees Rs 233 per day and is hence flouting its own norms.”
She added that the government has partially implemented the SRO 202 in State, while all the recruitment notifications advertised by JKSSB were under SRO 202, JKSSB notification no. 04 of 2017 for “Kashmiri Migrants” was left out of SRO 202 which exposes dual standards of the govt. to citizens of the same State.
The employees alleged that their counterparts appointed before 30.06.2015 through the same channel are drawing full salaries while they are paid a meagre 7000 to 8000 for the same work and hence the government is violating the Article 14 norms set by Honourable Supreme Court which says “Equal Pay for Equal Work”. According to the employees, their only mistake is that they were appointed after 30.06.2015. Under the garb of lack of requisite funds to pay employees, govt. has been hoodwinking us, as according to an RTI query the number of retirees from 30.06.2015 to 30.11.2017 outnumbers the number of appointees recruited under SRO 202 in the same period and a retiree draws twice the salary of a new appointee for the same post. The employees called for immediate revocation of SRO 202 so that future of youth of JK could be safeguarded.