After
calling IAS officer ‘uloo ka patha’,
trade union leader threatens DSEK’s gherao
Pressure mounts on Govt. to detach JKTF President, withdraw his ‘VIP status’
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
JAMMU, Jan 27: Even
as a section of the bureaucracy is said to be “shielding and promoting” him,
Government is reportedly mulling the transfer and detachment of the Jammu and
Kashmir Teachers Forum [JKTF] President Abdul Qayoom Wani from Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan (SSA) at the Civil Secretariat. Wani, who has publicly called the year-
2010 IAS topper and Director School Education Kashmir (DSEK) Dr Shah Faesal
“chocolate boy” and “Uloo ka patha”,
has now threatened to gherao the
office of the Head of the Department in Srinagar on January 30.
Wani, who also claims to represent 500,000 Government
employees, including 1,20,000 teachers, is primarily a schoolteacher. He is
currently holding the office of the incharge coordinator SSA at the Civil
Secretariat where, as the head of Employees Joint Action Committee (EJAC), he
has uncontrolled access to the top corridors of power. If highly placed
bureaucratic sources are to be believed, the proposal of Wani’s repatriation to
DSEK has been moved in a chain of transfers and appointments without reference
to his unparliamentary language and threatening tone and tenor against the IAS
officer.
While addressing a gathering of his union’s
office-bearers and teachers in Srinagar last week, Wani had bitterly assailed
Dr Faesal over ordering the reshuffle of some JKTF leaders “in violation of the
government’s transfer policy”. “By doing this, he has put his hand straight in
the lion’s mouth”, Wani had asserted to the cheering crowd.
Proudly calling himself “a landlord’s son” and suggesting
that the IAS officer was from a penurious family background, the JKTF President
had further said: “He is no landlord’s son. He should tell us how he acquired
properties in Kupwara and Hyderpora (Srinagar). If he doesn’t, I will reveal
where his money came from”.
Following these controversial assertions, which have gone
viral on social media, Commissioner-Secretary School Education Shaleen Kabra as
well as Chief Secretary B.R. Sharma are said to be under pressure of the KAS
and the IAS lobby to immediately terminate Wani’s access to Civil Secretariat.
“Bureaucracy has already disliked the VIP status the
Chief Secretary has accorded to the former Education Minister Tara Chand’s
right hand man. Sharma Sahab has not only given him free access to all the
bureaucrats’ and Ministers’ offices but also made him member of some high level
committees. He thinks he is another Chief Secretary”, said a senior IAS
officer. He expressed apprehension that the trade union leader’s “threats and
blackmail” would demoralise the public servants and make a mockery of the Governor’s
administration.
Wani has called upon his union members to gherao Directorate of School Education
Kashmir on January 30. However, another trade union, J&K General Line
Teachers Forum on Wednesday distanced itself from Wani’s call and said that it
was “nothing but sabotage to reform and
innovative process initiated by Director School Education”. It dismissed the
JKTF appeal as “the call of ego and arrogance” and claimed that its purpose was
“to only malign the image of the Director”.
Speaking to STATE TIMES, Wani claimed that the purpose of
his call was to register “protest against the transfers being made in violation
of the Government’s transfer policy”. He said that two of his District Presidents
had been transferred within two months of their posting even as the transfer
policy did not approve such changes before the mature stay of two years”. He
claimed that his objectionable remarks against the Director had been made “off
the record” and said that he had no intention to hurt the HOD.
Wani said his “struggle” was against the recently invoked
policies of the Government that include posting of a number of “outsiders” (KAS
officers) as Joint Directors and banning of the private tuition of the
government school-teachers. “We have 13 lakh students in the State. Only 5,000
are taking tuition at the centres set up at High and Higher Secondary Schools.
(Former Education Minister) Naeem Akhtar and Director Education misled even the
Chief Minister Mufti Sayeed. They told him lies and worked against the
interests of the teachers as well as the students”, Wani said.
Wani also questioned Mr Akhtar’s decision of subjecting
the RET teachers to a screening test years after they had been selected under
proper procedure by successive regimes. “As far as the question of the dubious
degrees and qualifications from unrecognised institutions is concerned, we have
said publicly that such teachers should be terminated at once. But how can they
render thousands of RET teachers jobless after years of their service?” Wani
asked.
Unfazed by the JKTF threat of gherao, Dr Shah Faesal told STATE TIMES that he had started to
clean up the system in his department and he would continue it without
succumbing to any pulls, pressures and threats. He dismissed Wani’s allegations
of corruption against him as “marks of frustration” and said that on January 30
itself he would be introducing the “Transfer Maila” from Ganderbal.
“It is an innovative governance initiative pioneered by
the governments of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. We will completely
eliminate the ages old touts system which has unnerved some self-styled trade
union leaders who have been thriving on this business. We will be directly
interacting with the teachers in the field and order transfers on the spot as
per the guidelines”, Dr Faesal said.
“To begin with, I have ordered just 45 transfers, six of
them today. This includes 3 or 4 so-called trade union leaders who for decades
have remained posted in non-teaching DIETs. Some of them had even set up their
union offices in these DIETs. They have not put in a day of teaching at a
school”, Dr Faesal said.
END
[Published in STATE TIMES January 28, 2016]
