news details |
|
|
| Separate PSC & separate competent authority for Jammu only solution | | | RUSTAM
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Feb 14: The aggrieved and badly let down highly talented young boys and girls of Jammu province are once again up in revolt against the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission (JKPSC), the State Government and the Jammu-based political leadership. They are moving heaven and earth to obtain their legitimate share in the service sector on the basis of merit. They have met certain BJP leaders as well and sought their intervention so that their merit is recognized and justice done to them. The case in point is the glaring disparity in the Kashmir Administrative Services (KAS) final selection list issued by the PSC four days ago.
What is the complaint of the irked and angry KAS aspirants haling from Jammu province, Hindu and Muslim boys and girls included? According to them, out of a total of 396 selected candidates, Kashmir got a major share of whopping 162 in open merit and that all these candidates belong to a particular community. As for Jammu province, out of a total of 234 selected candidates, only 28 Hindu candidates are in open merit, while 96 candidates are those who belong to certain social segments and certain areas for which a certain percentage of positions is reserved. In other words, according to them, the PSC has made invidious and humiliating distinctions between Kashmir and Jammu and given a preferential and differential treatment to the KAS aspirants belong to the Valley. To be more precise, according to them, the share of Jammu in open merit is a paltry 14 per cent, as compared to the Kashmir's whopping 86 per cent.
Their complaint just cannot be brushed aside and described as a manifestation of their bias against Kashmir. Their complaint appears quite genuine. Even a cursory glance at the final selection list would be enough to notice the glaring disparities as pointed out by the aggrieved Jammu youth.
It is not for the first time that the talented youth of Jammu province have raised their voice against the biased attitude of the PSC or the recruitment agencies towards them. It happens almost every year. The Jammu youth not only register their most emphatic protest every year against the shabby treatment meted out to them by the PSC and other recruitment agencies, but they also lodge a strong protest almost every year against the "biased" attitude of the Competent Authority, which selects candidates for admission to the technical and professional institutions like the medical and engineering colleges. The youth of Jammu knock at the door of the State High Court and the Supreme Court of India every year to seek justice, but the State Government and its cronies in Jammu always talks about equal treatment to Jammu with Kashmir.
It needs to be noted that the Jammu youth have been struggling since long with a view to persuading the concerned authorities to recognize merit and give them their due in the vital service sector and technical and professional institutions. In 1998, the youth of Jammu had virtually brought to the State Government to its knees on the issue of admission to technical and professional institutions. Farooq Abdullah then headed the government. Such was the pressure and such was the nature of the popular movement that they had engineered by the aggrieved students of Jammu province that the government had to appoint Singhal Committee.
After a thorough scrutiny of all the records dealing with functioning of the Competent Authority and reaching a definite conclusion that the Jammu youth had never been treated fairly, the three-member committee, headed by an eminent educationist Singhal, submitted a report to the state government in 1999. The report, inter-alia, recommended that admission in the State's medical and engineering colleges be made in accordance with the 1969 Jammu and Kashmir Universities Act, which had been solely enacted to mollify the Jammu's agitating student community. The 1969 Act, which is in force even today, provides for admission in the universities on a regional basis. In other words, the Singhal Committee recommended that all the seats available in the Jammu-based technical and professional institutions should be made the sole preserve of the Jammu youth and a similar system should be adopted in Kashmir. (Singhal Committee Report, PP. 21-22).
It would not be out of place to mention here that the MBBS/BDS selection lists of the years preceeding the appointment of the Singhal Committee had revealed that the share of Jammu in the State's medical colleges had consistently dwindled. For example, it had dwindled from 60 per cent in 1990 to 52 per cent in 1991 to 38 per cent in 1994 to 36 per cent in 1995 to 20 per cent in 1997 and to 17 per cent in 1995 (Singhal Committee Report, P. 4).
All this proves the charge that the authorities in the State are biased against the Jammu youth. What is the solution? The only solution is a separate PSC, a separate recruitment board and a separate Competent Authority for Jammu. Why only separate PSC or separate recruitment board or separate Competent Authority? Why not a separate provincial assembly for Jammu, invested with full legislative powers? In fact, the lasting solution to the problems being faced by the Jammu youth and other segments of society in this province lies only in the creation of a separate assembly in Jammu. Establishment of separate assembly in Jammu would remove inter-regional animosity and harmonize relations between Jammu and Kashmir. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
