Govt wants more prisons, more prisoners

But selection process of 73 warders takes 5 years, still incomplete

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jul 25: Notwithstanding Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s emphasis on quick and efficient delivery systems in the state government, officials directly functioning under his Home Department seem to be unmoved with regard to recruitment of warders in different jails in Jammu and Kashmir. Department of Prisons has seen five successive heads in the last five years but it has failed to complete the recruitment process of 73 warders in 59 months.

Last recruitment of Warders has taken place in 1995. With the officials reaching superannuation and no replenishment of staff coming in over the last 16 years, the number of jails as well as prisoners and detainees has remarkably grown. One of the new jails has come up in Kupwara in 2010 and the proposal of establishing another sub jail in Anantnag is in the pipeline. Cabinet is likely to sanction the creation within the current year. Department is operating and managing the jails with mass deputations of staff from J&K executive and armed Police.

It was during Mufti Mohammad Sayeed-led coalition government that Department of Prisons had started the process of the recruitment of staff for different jails in the state. Department had notified 73 posts of Warders, besides 29 more Class III and Class IV vacancies, vide Notification No: 539 of 2005 Dated 25-08-2005. As many as 14076 male candidates submitted papers for 63 vacancies while as the number of applications received for 10 vacancies, reserved for females, was 484 in Kashmir Division.

Even as Chief Ministers, Home Commissioners, Chief Secretaries, DGPs and IGPs, heading the Department of Prison, kept coming and going, the selection process remained wrapped in the shrouds of inaction for over four years. When the number of fresh prisoners and detainees rose to a phenomenal 5,000 in Valley alone due to last year’s street turbulence, Government began waking out of slumber. It conducted the physical test of candidates in November 2010, followed by a ‘Literacy Test’ of all candidates on 24-12-2010. Still, the selection process has not been completed and results have not been declared till date.

Inspector General of Police, Prisons, Mohammad Amin Anjum has no hesitation to accept that inordinate delay in the process of recruitment, that has already spanned over five years, was the result of the lack of initiative and accountability. “Applications of thousands of candidates had been decaying in steel trunks since these had been received in 2005. Four of my predecessor DGs, who headed the department, did not open a single of these applications. It was me who started the process last year and the physical test and literacy test conducted within two months”, Mr Anjum said.

In Kashmir valley alone, 14,560 candidates---1957 in Srinagar, Ganderbal; 2360 in Baramulla, Bandipore; 1201 in Budgam; 673 in Kupwara; 5528 in Anantnag, Kulgam; and 2841 in Pulwama, Shopian---have been waiting for the results with the hope of getting a government job since August 2005. Some of the SC/ST and OBC candidates, who were eligible upto the age of 40 years in 2005, have already crossed 45. Even if they are recruited today, their total length of service would be just 13 years.

Mr Anjum said that one of the key members of the selection committee, IGP Traffic Hemant Kumar Lohia, was currently on an official assignment in Germany. “Mr Lohia is likely to return in the first week of August. I’m hopeful that we must complete the process and declare the results within a month from now”, he asserted. Still, he expressed apprehension that preoccupation of Police officials with Independence Day (Aug 15^th) could further delay the process.

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