Jammu:  On the 11th day of strike called by casual and daily wage workers of the public health engineering (PHE) department over various demands, CPI(M) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami on Monday urged the Jammu and Kashmir administration to resolve the issue immediately.

The casual labourers and daily wage workers have been on strike in Jammu since February 7 demanding release of their pending wages, regularisation of jobs, filling up of vacant posts, repair and maintenance of faulty pumping houses and water stations and basic facilities at water stations for the staff among others.

While assuring full support to the agitators, Tarigami said, “I urge Lieutenant Governor G S Murmu to look into issues pertaining to regularisation and release of wages to daily rated workers because their strike has impacted utility services leading to drinking water crisis especially in most parts of Jammu and Srinagar cities,” Tarigami said.

“The administration must talk to the representatives of the PHE workers and try to figure out a reasonable solution to their issues urgently,” he said, adding they have been working sincerely for the department for the past many years, but “unfortunately they have been neglected”.

Hitting out the administration’s “lackadaisical” approach, he alleged that this was the reason for the present crisis as successive governments always made deceptive commitments to buy time and avoid the crisis.

“It is apathetic on the part of the administration that instead of holding parleys with the workers on strike, it adopts coercive methods to avoid the crisis,” Tarigami said.

The CPI(M) leader said that any problem concerning employees of important departments which is kept unresolved badly affects the output and the performance of the government.

The administration must understand the difficulties faced by these workers who have no money to pay their children’s school fees or to manage their day-to-day family affairs, Tarigami said.

Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Anti-Corruption Bureau has registered a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act against a former executive engineer of the PHE division for allegedly misusing his position in the allotment of works and utilisation of funds.

“A case has been registered on the outcome of a verification regarding allegations related to misappropriation by Bashir Ahmad Shah, the then executive engineer, PHE Division Bijebehara Anantnag, and others,” a spokesman of the ACB said on Monday.

He said Shah was accused of corrupt practices in the allotment of works to blue-eyed contractors.

“This included the Kishtwar-Simthan-Anantnag Road project in which the allotments were cancelled and then converted into authorities with four times above the allotted cost,” the spokesman said.

The physical status of permanent flood-restoration works in the division was checked and most works do not exist anywhere, he said.

“During the verification, it also came to the fore that an amount of Rs 4.79 crore has been shown drawn against the execution of different work components executed by the division in the flood-restoration programme without following codal formalities,” the spokesperson said, adding that the diversion of funds without mandatory approval was also detected.

Subsequent to the registration of the case, he said a search was conducted at the residence of Bashir Ahmad Shah.

BY: Faizan Wani
Srinagar : The inordinate delay by J&K government to make much hyped Fee Fixation Committee (FFC) functional has given a free hand to the private schools to fix their fee structure arbitrarily.
According to wire service—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the FFC became defunct on July 28 of 2019 after the two year term of the Chairman of the committee completed.
“Since then the government has not taken any decision about making the committee functional again,” an official said.
Some years ago, the committee was constituted on the directions of Supreme Court in wake of the complaints against the private schools fleecing parents.
The committee was given a mandate to regular the fee structure in private schools. The committee was headed by a justice (Rtd) and was given other staff members by the school education department.
“After the two year term of Chairman ended, the government should have appointed new Chairman on war footing basis or extended the term of the same Chairman to keep the committee functional. But no such step was taken due to which the committee is defunct from past over six months,” the official said.
As per KNO, amid the delay in making the committee functional, the fee structure in most of the schools has been hiked arbitrarily, with no check from the education department.
The parents complain of being fleeced by schools who are overcharging monthly tuition fee besides other fees charged by school management under various heads.
The parents said the schools have enhanced the monthly fee by Rs 600 to Rs 700 in each class in violation of government norms.
“Even some schools force parents to pay in advance the fee till March of this month,” a group of parents said.
An official at FFC said they also received complaints from parents against arbitrary hike in fee by private schools in various districts but they are not in position to initiate any action.
Commissioner Secretary School Education Department, Hirdesh Kumar was not available for his comments.
However, a top official in civil secretariat, wishing not to be named, said the education department has submitted the file to law department to seek their legal opinion in appointment of new Chairman of the committee. “There has been no response from law department till date,” he said. (KNO)

Srinagar, Feb 17: Commissioner SMC Gazanfer Ali today reviewed progress of various works under Swachh Bharat Mission.

All the components of Swachh Bharat Mission including Solid waste management, IEC (Information, Education, and communication, Capacity building were discussed at length, a statement issued to KNS reads.

“Commissioner SMC after reviewing  progress on various activities like awareness on waste segregation,  sanitation drives in schools, colleges, Nukad  Naataks, Walkathons, Plogging  etc  directed  I.E.C partners to  organize   innovative ,effective   and result oriented activities so that people are motivated for adoption of  waste segregation at house hold level,” statement added.

He further asked I.E.C partners of SMC to organize different result oriented activities in every nook and corner of the city    in such a way   so that it can bring in behavioral change at grass root level and people do follow various healthy practices in Solid waste management.

Danish Mushtaq Consultant Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Project Management Support Unit Khursheed Malik, Nodal Officer Swachh Bharat Mission Sofi Akbar, I.E.C partners and other officials were present in the meeting.(KNS)