Coalition’s ‘Deewali-Eid gift’ to unemployed youth is patently absurd, whimsical and nonsense

Ministers, who raised their own salaries from Rs 40,000 to Rs 90,000 in 2011, have no moral ground to slash salaries of inferior services by 75%

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Nov 8: They call it a ‘revolutionary reform’ and claim that it has been done under pressure from the central Planning Commission but leaders of the ruling National Conference (NC) have little hesitation to admit privately that the coalition government’s new recruitment policy could prove to be the proverbial last nail in its coffin. “We are in shackles. Our lips are tight. But we are pretty aware that this nonsense recruitment policy is diagonally opposite to our Vision Document as well as NC’s Election Manifesto of 2008”, observed a senior functionary of the ruling party whose inputs had enriched the promises made to the electorate three years ago.

Failure to provide jobs to the unemployed youth was indisputably NC’s strongest criticism to Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP-Congress regime in 2002-2005. More than anything else, NC accordingly made employment as its biggest election plank in 2008. In its first year, the coalition floated the much-hyped SKEWPY which is miserably still a non-starter. Even the MOU between Department of Labour & Employment and Jammu & Kashmir Bank Ltd could not be inked for over a year. And when the contentious issues were finally resolved, hiccups continued to be galore.

Notwithstanding competent and high integrity officials, both in Department of Labour & Employment as well as the nodal agency, Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI), Government has hardly a success story to showcase. Authorities have failed to create an alternative to the ‘madness’ of the state youth to hanker after the government jobs.

Towards the end of its first year in office, the coalition government began exposing its moral and intellectual bankruptcy. It withdrew the social security of the entire Generation Next with the decision that nobody joining government service from January 1^st, 2010, would be entitled to pension and other post-retirement perks.

After two years of sustained struggle by a host of trade unions, Government finally surrendered before the employees’ leaders and announced to pay sixth pay commission arrears to all employees in five equal annual installments, beginning this year. If rumours are to be believed, superannuation cap is also being raised from 58 to 60 years. Nobody really knows, whether these “revolutionary measures” are the brainchild of Mr Jaleel Khan, Economic Advisor to J&K Government, or someone else in the high profile Department of Finance. At least three Ministers, who participated in the crucial Cabinet meetings on the subject, confided to Early Times that the “purely bureaucratic exercise” was passed without discussion of even five minutes.

Finally the fatal blow to the already alienated and depressed Generation Next was struck by the state Cabinet in its meeting on October 19, 2011, mercilessly on the eve of a convergence of festivals---Maha Navmi, Dussehra, Deewali and Eid-ul-Azha. Prisoners of the personal promotion, who did not rest until raising their own salaries from Rs 40,000 to Rs 90,000 a month, decided to reduce salaries of Class 3^rd and 4^th employees (joining government service after Nov 1^st, 2011) by 60% to 75%.

According to the Cabinet Decision No: 193/23/2011 Dated 19-10-2011, followed by Government Order No: Government Order No: 257-F of 2011

Dated: 27-10-2010, a Class 4^th employee, whose salary would be otherwise fixed at gross of Rs 13,000 a month, would now be paid a paltry Rs 3,170 for the first two years and thereafter Rs 4,610 for the next three years. Similarly, a high-end non-gazetted official in the Pay Band-2 of Rs 9300—Rs 34,800 (with grade pay of Rs 4,200) would get nothing more than Rs 7,050 a month for first two years, followed by Rs 10,430 for subsequent three years. Without the Cabinet Decision of 19-10-2011, same official’s salary would have been fixed at total of Rs 25,000 on 1-11-2011 while as his emoluments on 1-11-2016 would have been around Rs 34,000.

Civil society has already dismissed this decision as “begaar” (forced labour) and the opposition parties have begun to make it a major issue around this Durbar Move. “This is definitely absurd, irrational and without precedence in any of the Indian states in the last 64 years of Independence. But, our mandarins in the Department of Finance have their own logic. They insist that this decision would not only de-glamorize government jobs but would also cause savings needed to pay to the in-service employees as the arrears”, said a highly placed IAS officer. He did not contest the argument that it would directly promote absenteeism, corruption and other evils in the state services.

Socio-political analysts have no divergence over the apprehension that the so-called ‘Fixed Salary Mode’ recruitment policy would not only aggravate alienation, frustration and despondency among the educated youth trying their hands at a government job but would also sustain depression of even those who succeed in getting a job. “All those of us who were enamoured and enthusiastic by the glamour of RTI, Public Service Guarantee Act and anti-corruption campaign, would now feel constrained to make good their salary deduction of 75% by receiving bribes and other unfair means. Make me a Forest Range Officer and I am ready to accept zero-salary for 10 years. I will rather pay Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 a month to the Government from my earnings”, an RTI activist, with post-graduation in Forestry, said sarcastically.  

The ad hocist policy, framed over the NC-introduced ‘Rehbar-e-Taleem” pattern is blatantly in contravention to all existing labour laws in this country. High Court has already got it stayed. Even a complete rollback would not fully neutralize damages of the government’s intellectual bankruptcy. Interestingly, the state bureaucrats, who ensured that Ministers’ salaries remained pretty lower to those of Commissioner-Secretaries and above, have kept all superior services out of the ambit of new “Gareeb Hatao Recruitment Policy”.

END