news details |
|
|
| Illegal appointments scam rocks floriculture deptt, Kokernag gets lion's share | | | Mustansir
SRINAGAR, Aug 25: Yet another scandal of backdoor appointments has surfaced in the Floriculture Department wherein large scale unauthorized appointments of daily rated and casual labourers have been made during last few months.
According to reliable sources, floriculture department has engaged as many as 56 casual labourers in Anantnag district alone during last couple of years while as hundreds of such appointments have been made during last three or four months. 35 persons have been engaged to look after several parks in picturesque Pahalgam tourist station alone.
Sources said the interesting part of the story is that all the 35 people engaged in Pahalgam hill station belong to Kokernag constituency represented by the Minister for Floriculture. Sources further averred that for making illegal appointments, the departmental authorities disengage the appointees after every 2-3 months only to convey misleading impression that the appointees are engaged on temporary and need based basis.
They said that there are more than 100 people engaged by Floriculture Department during last two to three months in Kashmir division alone. Sources said locals in Pahalgam after finding that a large number of youth from Kokernag constituency have been engaged to man the Pahalgam parks staged a protest demonstration on Saturday and locked many parks where the outsiders were engaged.
They said the matter was brought into the notice of the Deputy Commissioner Anantnag, Farooq Lone who directed the CEO Pahalgam Development Authority (PDA), Nisar Mir and SHO Pahalgam to ascertain the authenticity of the allegations who latter confirmed to the Deputy Commissioner that 35 non-locals have been engaged in Pahalgam. They said after the assurance from CEO, PDA that the matter will be looked into and the recommendations will be made to the government to engage local youth for manning the Pahalgam parks, the protesters unlocked the parks.
When contacted, senior PDP leader and MLA Pahalgam, Rafi Ahmad Mir told Early Times that he too was apprised by the locals that large scale illegal appointments have been made by the Floriculture department to look after the Pahalgam parks ignoring the local educated youth which was not acceptable.
"Some time ago, I was informed by the local people that a group of youth mostly outsiders have been engaged by the floriculture department but I could not believe and ignored it. But on Saturday locals in Pahalgam took to the streets to protest against these engagements" Mir said and added that last year in the month of September the then Minister for Floriculture, Sham Lal Sharma on his visit to Pahalgam was apprised by his officials that they were short of manpower to man the parks in Pahalgam.
The Minister had assured that a mechanism would be evolved to engage the educated youth in the department to look after the parks and preference shall be given to the locals because they have the first right to earn the livelihood. Mir said after Sham Lal was divested of Floriculture portfolio, it was presumed that a policy would be framed to engage the local youth to man the parks in the area but unfortunately non-locals have been engaged unauthorizedly without even following the normal procedure.
On being asked, Director Floriculture Kashmir said that the engagements have been made purely on need basis and the department has not engaged anyone as daily wager. But when he was told that how all 35 people engaged in Pahalgam belong to one particular constituency, the director said while avoiding any direct reply said he will look into it.
It merits a mention here that the Government had in the month of April ordered disengagement of all consolidated, casual, daily wagers, need based, contingent and local paid workers, who had been appointed in various departments by the unauthorized officers and without any vacancies.
Government had issued an order for cancellation of the appointments, which had been made by the officers, who had no authority to engage the workers or their departments had no need for the appointments, which had purely been made on "political grounds''. However, the practice of engaging casual-laboures in various departments continues unabated and most of the engagements are being made on political considerations on the directions of the concerned ministers.
According to reliable sources, around 1200 youth have been engaged in different departments on the directions of the concerned ministers and on recommendations of the political leaders of the coalition partners. The number of engagements is increasing with each passing day as all the ministers' order for engagement of casual laboures.
A senior bureaucrat on the conditions of not to be named told Early Times that the ministers are secretly engaging the people from their respective constituencies in the departments under their control throwing all the norms and procedures into dustbin. "Although all these departments figure in the government list, which were entitled to make need based appointments but they should have been made by competent officers based on the requirements,'' said the bureaucrat and added that "in addition to these departments, no other office was authorized to make such appointments''
However, according to sources, some Departments, which didn't figure in the list of "authorized departments'' to make need based appointments, had also engaged the workers either on the recommendations of political leaders or some officers. It may be mentioned here that the Government had to face massive heat in the Legislative Assembly during budget session of the Legislature in March-April on the issue of backdoor appointments. Later, it had admitted that 5873 backdoor appointments had been made in various departments. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
