BANANA PEPUBLIC OF JAMMU & KASHMIR—(4)

LIC official, teacher work as ‘correspondents’ for Radio Kashmir

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

PULWAMA/ANANTNAG, Jul 11: While Cultural Assistant in J&K Academy of Art, Culture & Languages, Zahoor Sultan War, and teacher at Government Middle School Gohan, Chandoosa, are simultaneously working as ‘Correspondents’ for Radio Kashmir in Kupwara and Baramulla districts in North Kashmir, South Kashmir is behind none in making a mockery of the institutions of both, Government as well as Media, in the conflict-riddled Kashmir valley. During an investigation, Early Times discovered that a Head Clerk of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), a Government of India Undertaking, as also a Government schoolteacher, have been regularly working as ‘reporters’ with the national broadcaster in Pulwama and Anantnag.

Law calls it “business” and makes the defaulters of the Service Conduct Rules of both, Government of J&K as well as Government of India, liable to severe punishment---imprisonment upto two years and fine in cash. Termination of service in such matters is the basic requirement of the disciplinary action by the employer department. However, senior officials of All India Radio (AIR), LIC and School Education Department of the state government have invariably dumped all complaints against the defaulters into their dustbins.

Son of one Mohammad Khalil, a retired official of the office of Chief Education Officer (CEO) Pulwama, Ayub Javed, was appointed as a Lower Division Clerk by Staff Selection Commission of Government of India in the year 1993. He was posted in LIC. In the last 18 years, Ayub has been elevated to the senior rank of Higher Grade Assistant. He is a resident of Dangarpora locality of Pulwama town and has been continuously working at LIC’s District Office at Pulwama.

Enquiries revealed that Ayub has been simultaneously, and regularly, working as a ‘Correspondent’ with not only a number of Srinagar dailies but also for Government of India’s AIR. Officials at Radio Kashmir Srinagar admitted that this LIC official had been regularly working for the daily current affairs programme ‘Sheherbeen’. They said that sending over a dozen “news reports” from Pulwama every month, Ayub had been regularly taking his fixed remuneration in the form of cheques payable at a Srinagar branch of the State Bank of India.

Sherherbeen’s current producer, Rukhsana Jabeen, has no hesitation in justifying engagement of state government employees for the daily programme. “We are not bound by any guidelines. This is the responsibility of employer departments of the government to make their employees accountable and prevent them from working with media organizations”, she asserted.

However, officials holding senior ranks in accounts section of AIR and DDK Srinagar maintained that one government department could, in no circumstances, engage employees of another department on any arrangement---full time, part time, whatever. The revealed that various authorities, including Directorate of School Education Kashmir, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir and State Vigilance Organisation had written letters to Radio Kashmir as well as DDK Srinagar asking them to ensure that no government official was booked for a programme without the written permission from administrative head of the concerned department and during office hours.

“There are also other riders. According to AIR Manual, we can not book any talent/contributor more than once in 14 days. In case of talents selected through audition, screening and interview, one could be paid for a maximum of six bookings in a month”, said a senior official. “Making payment to Sheherbeen reporters for more than twice a month is completely illegal and objectionable”, he added. He further informed that empanelled contributors, essentially selected through audition and interview, could be paid for a maximum of 89 days a year, in case of common programmes, and 120 days in case of news, as a special concession in J&K.

Officials confirmed that none of the Sheherbeen reporters had been selected though a written test, interview or audition. At the same time, these “reporters” were being paid for dozens of bookings every month, that too at rates far higher than those of contributors of other programmes. Interestingly, Ayub Javed, as well as all other government employees masquerading as “reporters”, have given a signed undertaking on contracts of each programme that reads: “I am not a Government employee”. Not a single mention of such regular payments has been made in any of Income Tax returns filed by such employee-scribes.

This does not stop there. Prasar Bharti’s Part Time Correspondent (PTC), Tassaduq Rashid Zargar S/o Abdul Rashid Zargar R/o Mattan, Anantnag, was also found to be a regular teacher of the School Education Department. Like, Kousar Salam in Baramulla, Tassaduq too has submitted an affidavit to DG News of AIR that he had resigned his job of a teacher. As already reported, Prasar Bharti’s engagement guidelines mention it clearly that no state/ central government employee could be considered for engagement as PTC.

Fact of the matter is that, like a number of others, Tassaduq Zargar too has been regularly working as AIR’s and Doordarshan’s PTC at district headquarters of Anantnag. “He has given us an undertaking that he was no more working as a teacher with J&K Government”, Director of News for Srinagar stations of AIR and DD, Bashir Malik, said. However, officials in CEO’s office at Anantnag insisted that Zargar had never resigned. “He is continuing on our payrolls. In our records, he has never resigned”, said an official. Tassaduq Rasheed later produced an order from Director of School Education saying that he had duly resigned and his resignation had been accepted way back in 2006.

END