Valley’s shadows and sunshine run parallel to each other

Kashmir calm as 2 militants die in gunfights, CM visits passing-out, DC mired in ex-gratia controversy, separatists reduce shutdown to two-days-a-week

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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JAMMU, Dec 14: Fourteen years ago when Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed conceived the idea of raising Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) at Awantipora, in close vicinity of the headquarters of Army’s counterinsurgency division Victor Force, he dreamt of diverting the Valley’s teenagers to academics, technology and science. Last two years, post-Assembly elections of 2014, this institute of learning has produced a breed of the youngsters who dedicated the prime of their youth to killing and getting killed.

As rhetoric often eclipses intentions, many of the IUST students nourished the dreams of achieving what a generation from Sufi Mohammad Akbar and Maqbool Bhat to Salahuddin and Yasin Malik had failed to accomplish. Paradoxically, they drew inspiration not only from the separatists but also from the genetically equivocal pseudo-separatists who delivered speeches, issued statements, penned articles and sang paeans for everybody from the British soldier Robert Thorpe to Yasin Malik. Many of them are now enjoying dignity and fortunes in the corridors of power in PDP-BJP government.  

Second year student of a diploma in civil engineering at IUST, Basit Rasool Dar, who died in an encounter with Police and security forces in Beowora village, near Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s hometown of Bijbehara, on Wednesday, is the latest in South Kashmir who ended up dying as a martyr to the ever-elusive cause of Azadi. His father, Ghulam Rasool Dar of Marhama (Bijbehara), a manager with Jammu and Kashmir Bank in Anantnag, wanted him to rise as an engineer. Basit chose to follow Burhan Wani, became a confidant of his successor and IUST student Zakir, Ishaq ‘Newton’ and others who emerged as “icons of freedom” in the last two years.

When Basit breathed his last, his mother was in Delhi — escorting elder son, who has been posted in the union capital after his selection in J&K Bank. Both returned to home to attend Basit’s funeral rites in the evening. Police maintained around 5,000 participated in the militant’s burial, though some reports put the numbers between 7,000 and 8,000.

But what is significant at the end of five months of the street turbulence in Kashmir is that Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti attended a Police commando passing-out parade a few miles short of Bijbehara and closer to IUST. She spoke of peace and the militants’ families’ right to ex-gratia munificence from the government. Director General of Police, K Rajendra Kumar, and Deputy Commissioner of Pulwama, Muneer-ul-Islam, escorted her to the venue. The spot at Lethapora was just furlongs away from the place on Srinagar-Jammu highway which witnessed hundreds of attacks on the mainstream politicians, officials and even the students ferried to Srinagar for a competitive examination. This is exactly where additional DC of Ramban was attacked while a mob torched his vehicle and his PSO opened fire, killing two persons.

For over three months, nobody from politicians to officials dared to venture into this area. Police and security forces surrendered it completely to militants, stone-pelters and demonstrators. Minutes after Basit’s burial, that marked a few incidents of stone pelting but failed to suspend the train services or traffic on the highway, Valley’s separatist leadership issued the fresh shutdown calendar. To everybody’s surprise, it asked the Kashmiris to continue their shutdown only on Saturday and Sunday every week and resume normal activities on five days a week. This relaxation was granted after five months of turmoil.

While the country’s television channels churned their brains on the Mehbooba Mufti government’s “temerity” of granting ex-gratia relief of Rs 4 lakh to Burhan Wani’s family over their another son Khalid’s death during an encounter in Tral in April 2015, DC Muneerul-ul-Islam stood unfazed, flanking Chief Minister at the passing-out parade.

In North Kashmir, LeT’s “Divisional Commander” Abu Bakar died in another gunbattle in Bomai area of Sopore.

Is this the denouement of the melodrama enacted through summer of the year 2016 that brought enriched statements from the separatists, leading to death of around 90 people, devastation of hundreds of properties and injuries to thousands of “protesters”. “We have been never this close to Azadi in last 26 years”, the separatists told the Kashmiris. Now the same people ask questions: “What have we achieved out of the five long months of shutdown? Where is the Azadi you promised us for five months? What makes you reduce the 24x7 shutdown to just two-days-a-week show?”

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[Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

Ex-Minister Rather’s son claims Nirmal Singh’s JMC issued permission to Paradise Avenue

‘Man masquerading as RTI activist demanded Rs 30 lakh from my firm. We recorded his 40 phone calls. This mafia’s hand can be behind the blackmailing drive’

State Times News

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JAMMU, Dec 13: Former Finance Minister and senior National Conference leader Abdul Rahim Rather’s businessman son Hilal Ahmad Rather on Tuesday claimed that a story about Jammu Municipal Corporation’s “illegal permission”, as carried in a Jammu-based newspaper, was “completely baseless” and possibly the handiwork of a blackmailing mafia that attempted an extortion of Rs 30 lakh from him and his partners earlier this year. Disputing the ‘facts’ given in the story point-by-point with his documentary evidences, the real estate entrepreneur claimed that the revised permission to hundreds of flats in his 13-floor blocks at Narwal Bala, christened as Paradise Avenue, had been issued by JMC when none other than the BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh was Minister of Housing and Urban Development in the year 2015.

As quoted by the daily, Nirmal Singh has alleged that the building permission to Paradise Avenue construction had been found “illegal” and the matter was being referred either to Crime Branch or to State Vigilance Organisation for criminal investigation. The daily has claimed that the permission had been granted by the “NC loyalist” Kiren Watal when he functioned as Commissioner JMC during Omar Abdullah’s NC-Congress government.

“It is a fact that the building permission was issued during the NC-Congress government in December 2013 in which my father was a Minister. But, there was never a political intervention. We fulfilled all the legal and procedural formalities. We obtained NOCs from all the concerned departments. Revenue Department verified the titles of the land. JDA gave in writing it was not its land or jurisdiction. Even BDO concerned issued his permission. JMC scrutinised everything. Thereafter, we deposited the fees and the building permission was duly issued by JMC. However, when the PDP-BJP regime took over in March 2015, JMC officials working under the new Housing Minister’s control approached us with the plea that the year 2013 permission would have to be scrutinised afresh. They checked and verified the documents and found everything in place. Thereafter, JMC, under Deputy CM’s control, issued the revised building permission on April 29, 2015”, Hilal revealed at a press conference.

“If the Housing Minister still wants FIR to be registered and this case assigned to Crime Branch and Vigilance, we welcome it. We have everything in place and nothing to worry about. But we alone won’t be in the dock. Housing Minister (Nirmal Singh) will be there too as the JMC under him issued the revised permission when none other than the same man was the Housing Minister”, Hilal asserted, while producing to mediapersons all the NOCs issued and both the building permissions---one issued during Omar Abdullah’s government and another during Mufti Sayeed’s government in which Dr Nirmal Singh functioned as Minister incharge Housing, Urban Development and Power.

“It smacks of political vendetta and targets me only for being an ex-Minister’s son. Behind this well-orchestrated vilification campaign, I also suspect the hand of a blackmailing mafia. I fail to understand how a reputed newspaper has been taken for a ride and how the baseless story has been published without attempting to take our version”, Hilal said at a time when Jammu is abuzz with reports and rumours alleging that a Minister of Mehbooab Mufti’s government extorted an amount of Rs 13 crore from an MLC of his own party for the permission granted to construction of luxury flats around the heritage site of Amar Mahal and close to Raj Bhawan.

 While playing a recorded telephonic conversation, in which two unidentified persons settle a deal over a huge amount to be extorted from the Simula partners, Hilal claimed that a blackmailer in the guise of an RTI activist recently attempted to extort an amount of Rs 30 lakh from his firm. He claimed that his firm had recording of 40 phone calls in which so-called RTI activists demanded money from every partner of his firm in exchange for not publishing the information and documents they had purportedly obtained through RTI application.

The conversation played at the press conference makes it clear that an RTI activist settles a deal with an employee of Hilal’s firm. “We two will take 30% each and your share will be 40%”, says a person about himself and another RTI activist and the employee of Hilal’s firm who seems to have trapped the two RTI activists.

“We will produce this entire documentary evidence to the criminal investigation and press for legal action against these blackmailers. We have no weaknesses, no irregularities that would force us surrender or succumb to any sort of blackmailing”, Hilal Rather asserted.

Hilal, who is a Bachelor of Technology from the prestigious Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, admitted that a ‘gair mumkin khud’, consisting of 99 kanals of land existed on a part of his society. He, however, revealed that his permission had been issued and the construction had started over a year before J&K High Court banned constructions on such lands in July 2014.

“Honourable High Court is adjudicating on this issue. Let us have faith in the judiciary and wait for the judgment. How can someone in the government in advance issue a judgment selectively against Hilal Rather with retrospective effect?”, Hilal said. He clarified that even after JMC issued permission in favour of his firm at Narwal Bala and Jammu Development Authority (JDA) gave in writing in the NOC that it was outside its jurisdiction, his firm Simula approached the concerned BDO and also got his permission to the construction.

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[Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

Red alert in Anantnag as Hizb ‘highway squad’ planning major attack

LeT claims its J&K chief Abu Dujana escaped but confirms death of two top militants in Bijbehra encounter

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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JAMMU, Dec 10: Police and security forces on Saturday sounded a red alert in Anantnag area after learning that Hizbul Mujahideen’s ‘Highway Squad’ was planning a major strike on the highway in South Kashmir.

Highly placed authoritative sources revealed to STATE TIMES that according to reliable information, Hizbul Mujahideen’s “Highway Squad” was planning to carry out a major attack on the security forces’ convoy on Srinagar-Jammu highway somewhere between Qazigund and Khannabal. Sources said that the militants of the “Highway Squad”, believed to be residents of Khudwani-Arwani belt, were planning to plant and explode a powerful IED, targeting some convoy of Army, BSF or CRPF in the next two or three days.

While the top officials in Police and security agencies were still blurred over the number and identity of the militants killed in the three-day-long gunbattle near Arwani, LeT confirmed that two of its top operatives, namely Abdul Majid Zargar alias Abu Talha Majid s/o Mohammad Amin Zargar of Gofabal, Kaimoh, and Ibrahim Ruhul Amin s/o Mohammad Amin of Vesu, Qazigund, had got killed in the joint operation of Army, CRPF and J&K Police.

Let spokesman claimed in a press release that the organisation’s J&K chief, Abu Dujana, a Pakistani militant who has been operating in the Valley since 2012, managed to escape from the tightly cordoned area. As already reported, a local civilian was also found dead. His bullet-riddled body was spotted and recovered from the railway track on Thursday.

Officials said that three AK-47 rifles were recovered from the debris of a completely destroyed house alongwith two acutely charred human bodies. However, senior CRPF officials insisted that three militants and a civilian had died in the operation. They said it was being verified whether the third militant, killed in the encounter, was Waseem of Shopian, Junaid Matu of Redwani or someone else. J&K Police officials claimed that only two militants and a civilian supporter of the militants had died in the operation.

Abu Dujana is currently the most wanted militant in Jammu and Kashmir. He was appointed as LeT’s chief for J&K after the organisation’s most dreaded head Abu Qasim of Bahwalpur, Pakistan, was killed in an encounter at Khandaypora, Kulgam, on October 29, 2015. Qasim was believed to be the mastermind of scores of attacks and fatal casualties of Police and security forces, including the August 5, 2015, fidayeen attack on a paramilitary convoy near Udhampur, on Srinagar-Jammu highway.

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 [Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

Mehbooba leaves Cabinet meet in a huff as BJP Ministers oppose 2 IGP, 3 DIG posts for KPS

Nirmal Singh, Lal Singh rush to pacify the dejected Chief Minister at her home

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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JAMMU, Dec 9: Failing to get through her proposal of cadre review for officers of Kashmir Police Service (KPS) — reservation of 2 IPS posts of IGP and 3 IPS posts of DIG for KPS officers — Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday left the Cabinet meeting in a huff, without consideration of some key agenda items as the Ministers of her coalition partner BJP resisted any conversion of IPS cadre posts for promotion of KPS officers.

On instructions from Chief Minister, who is holding portfolio of Home Department, Principal Secretary Home, R.K. Goyal, on Thursday prepared a detailed proposal for reservation of 2 posts of IGP and 3 posts of DIG for the senior KPS officers who fail to get induction into IPS on time and retire only as SSPs. The Cabinet memo was duly endorsed and approved by Chief Minister and enlisted in the agenda for Friday’s Cabinet meeting.

With the support of some Cabinet Ministers of PDP, the KPS officers of 1999 batch have been demanding reservation of at least 5 IPS posts for the State police service officers on the pattern of their Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) siblings.

While as five KAS officers, without their induction into IAS, are currently holding the posts of the administrative secretaries in Government of Jammu and Kashmir, six more of them are functioning in the grade of Commissioner-Secretary to Government and holding equivalent posts on ex-cadre basis. According to highly placed bureaucratic sources, IAS and IPS officers have submitted a host of representations to Government of India while strongly complaining that the cadre posts of IAS and IPS were being diverted for KAS and KPS officers.

Sources insist that from both, political as well bureaucratic quarters, in New Delhi, “men in J&K Government” had been advised to take a tough stand and fail whatever proposal the PDP would push in a Cabinet meeting.

According to the well-placed sources, after consideration and approval to certain agenda items, including a retired IAS officer Ashraf Bukhari’s appointment as Chairman of BOPEE, the Cabinet took up the agenda item of the cadre review of KPS.

The BJP Ministers, led by Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh, opposed the proposal tooth and nail, while contending that the cadre arrangement of IPS, IAS and IFS should not be disturbed without taking on board the Prime Minister’s Office that controls the IAS regulator Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT), Union Ministry of Home Affairs that regulates the IPS and the Union Ministry of Environment and Forestry that regulates the Indian Forest Service.

When some PDP Ministers sought to make it clear that there were more contenders for the reservation from Jammu than from Kashmir, the BJP Ministers declined to relent. They agreed only to the extent that the grade of IG and DIG could be granted to the senior KPS officers without posting them as IGPs and DIGs. Chief Minister herself pleaded the case of the non-IPS KPS officers, pointing out that for several years of their service towards the end of their career, they are forced to work under their juniors. It causes substantial demoralisation among the senior KPS officers, CM is said to have asserted.

As the BJP Ministers in one voice continued their opposition to the CM’s proposal, Ms Mufti got up and left the meeting in a huff. For the first time since she took over as CM in April this year, Ms Mufti turned impulsive on a Cabinet proposal and she drove straight to her official residence. Minutes later, PDP’s Cabinet Ministers Haseeb Drabu and Abdul Haq Khan rushed to the CM’s residence. Sources said that in half-an-hour, they were also followed by two BJP Ministers— Dy CM Nirmal Singh and Minister of Forest Lal Singh. It was not immediately clear whether Chief Minister entertained them or not.

Consequently, a number of the agenda items could not be considered in today’s meeting, that was the first after shifting of Durbar from Srinagar to Jammu. Previously, Cabinet had met in Srinagar on October 14.

Some reports said that differences between the coalition partners occurred on the proposal of the shifting of Chief Secretary B.R. Sharma as DG IMPA on retirement of Dr Arun Kumar and the appointment of Mr B.B. Vyas as the new Chief Secretary. However, top level bureaucratic and political sources told STATE TIMES that there was “no truth” in such reports circulated and spread through social media.

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[Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

PDP Minister removes NC Minister’s 2014 plaque, lays fresh foundation stone for Budgam water scheme

With total development freeze in Valley, PDP-BJP Govt starts take-2 of foundation stones

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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JAMMU, Dec 7: Stealing credit for developmental works is an old trait of politicians in Jammu and Kashmir. But, what the Mehbooba Mufti government’s Minister of Agriculture and PDP’s MLA of Chrar-e-Sharief did in his constituency on last Monday is uncommon. On December 5, Minister and MLA Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjuria carried with him a team of officials to lay a fresh foundation stone for an irrigation scheme for which the foundation stone had been laid by three Ministers of the Omar Abdullah government in June 2014.

According to an official press release, issued by Department of Information vide No: PR/DI/16/5564 on December 5, 2016, and got published in many of the newspapers, including STATE TIMES, Mr Hanjura laid foundation stone for construction of Water Storage Tank at Arzan-Garzan in Chrar-e- Sharief constituency. The Minister said at the occasion that the Rs 25 crore irrigation scheme would irrigate 1022 hectares of land in Chrar-e-Sharief constituency.

“The project has been sanctioned at an estimated cost of Rs 25.28 crore under Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP). On completion the project will irrigate 1022 hectares of land of seven habitations of Chrar-e-Sharief constituency. These areas include Charwani, Zakhipora, Kakavring, Palpora, Dardpora, Hathpora, Tangnar, Chack and Mohanjdaur”, said the press release.

“Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said that the Government is committed to provide basic amenities like adequate drinking water, power and road connectivity to the people of the State especially in rural and hilly areas. He said several initiatives have been taken in this regard adding that the Centre has already sanctioned a package of Rs 80,000 crore for the overall development of State”, said the press release further while highlighting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Rs 80,000 crore economic package which was announced by the PM in Srinagar on November 7, 2015.

“Mr. Hanjura said the present Chief Minister, Ms Mehbooba Mufti is carrying forward the mission of Late Mufti Sahab and she had recently laid foundation stone of two Nursing Colleges at Awantipora and Chrar-e-Sharief”, it added.

The press release said that Deputy Commissioner of Budgam, SSP of Budgam and “senior officers of Irrigation and Flood Control department” were present on the occasion.

Conducting a reality check, STATE TIMES learned that none of the senior officers of Irrigation and Flood Control department accompanied the Minister. Minister of Irrigation and Flood Control Choudhary Sham Lal, MoS Irrigation, Syed Farooq Andrabi, as also Chief Engineer, SE and Executive Engineer were conspicuously absent from the function. However an Assistant Executive Engineer was obediently in attendance.

Insiders revealed to this newspaper that the officers of their department stood away as it was difficult for them to attend the foundation laying of a scheme which had been approved in the previous regime and for which even the funds had been released. They provided a full album of the photographs which make it clear that the same scheme’s foundation stone had been laid by Omar Abdullah government’s Minister of Irrigation and Flood Control Sham Lal Sharma, Minister of Finance and National Conference’s Chrar-e-Sharief MLA Abdul Rahim Rather and Minister of State for Irrigation and Flood Control Nazir Ahmad Gurezi at the same spot on June 26, 2014.

The news item and photograph of the foundation laying was released by the State Information Department on June 26, 2014, and got published in newspapers on June 27, 2014.

“As the honourable Minister insisted that he would lay a fresh foundation scheme, we spoke to our Minister. When we explained to him that the foundation stone had already been laid in June 2014, he advised us to stay away. None of the senior officers attended it. We chose not to be part of it”, said an official. According to another official, AEE was put under pressure through the district administration and forced to accompany the Minister. “This scheme had not been executed in the last two years but that doesn’t mean we could remove the old stone and lay a fresh one for the incumbent Minister’s pleasure”, he said.

Attempts to reach Mr Hajura failed as his mobile phone was constantly not reachable. Chief Engineer Irrigation Kashmir Mir Javed Jaffar and SE (Hydraulic) Budgam-Srinagar Imtiyaz Ahmad Dhar did not respond to phone calls.

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[Published to today’s STATE TIMES]

J&K Govt website shows Bali Bhagat as Forest Minister, Suresh Kumar as Director FPF

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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JAMMU, Dec 6: Jammu and Kashmir Government’s nonchalance and non-seriousness towards the all-important Forest sector could be gauged, inter alia, by the official websites of its departments which have not been updated even once during 8-month-long regime of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.

Incredibly, the official website of the Jammu and Kashmir Forest Protection Force (FPF) declares BJP leader Bali Bhagat as Minister of Forest and Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Suresh Kumar Gupta as Director of FPF.

As a matter of fact, Mr Bali Bhagat is Minister of Health and Medical Education in Mehbooba Mufti’s government since April 5, 2016, when Chief Minister allocated portfolios to her Cabinet Minister a day after taking oath on April 4, 2016. Since that day, BJP leader Choudhary Lal Singh is Minister of Forest, Environment and Ecology.

It appears that FPF’s website has never been updated in the current year. In Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s government from March 1, 2015 to January 7, 2016, Bali Bhagat was Minister of Forest and Lal Singh was Minister of Health and Medical Education.

On August 12, 2016, Mehbooba Mufti’s government appointed Suresh Kumar Gupta (IFS-1991) as Managing Director of Jammu and Kashmir State Forest Corporation (SFC) while as Dr. R.K. Tiwari (IFS-1993) was appointed as Director FPF. Both the officers took over their new assignments within days of the reshuffle in August.

Adhocism and non-seriousness in FPF can also be imagined from the fact that a junior officer of State Forest Service, who is still not confirmed as Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF) and has worked as “incharge DCF” for some time, has been appointed as Joint Director of FPF in Kashmir Division.

According to the law and rules, JD of FPF is equivalent in rank to Conservator of Forest (CF) in Forest Department.

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[Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

Forest Protection Force fails to recruit 60 ADs in last 20 years

Lack of interest evident after a Forest Minister failed to appoint his own daughter and a top separatist leader’s son through backdoor in the year 2000

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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JAMMU, Dec 4: When National Conference regained power after a seven-year-long pause of Governor’s and President’s rule in October 1996, it attached top most priority to protection of the State’s depleting sylvan cover. Creation of the Jammu and Kashmir Forest Protection Force (FPF) in December 1996 was highlighted as the Farooq Abdullah government’s significant decision and a remarkable achievement.

The Government accorded sanction to creation of 2,257 posts including one Director of the rank of Chief Conservator of Forest (CCF), two Joint Directors of the rank of CF, 30 Deputy Directors of the rank of DCF, 60 Assistant Directors of the rank of Range Officer Grade-I, 150 Inspectors of the rank of Forester and 1500 FPF Guards equivalent to Forest Guards. Government decided to create 30 operational units of FPF which in jurisdiction would be co-terminus with equal number of Territorial Forest Divisions in the State.

Jammu and Kashmir Forest Protection Force Act 2001 came into force subsequently on April 12, 2001. A committee of officers was constituted for drafting of the ‘Working Rules’ and ‘Recruitment Rules’ with standing instructions that the same be got drafted and notified within a year. Even as the Force is completing 20 years of its life this week, it has failed to draft and notify the Recruitment Rules in the last two decades.

While the successive governments borrowed senior officers, including Director, JDs and DDs from the Forest Department, they picked up a profusion of favourites to fill up the lower rungs of FPF Guards, Inspectors through recruitment board. One of the most important levels—60 Assistant Directors—was left vacant after a Forest Minister failed to appoint favourites, including his own daughter and a senior separatist leader’s son, through backdoor.

Farooq Abdullah’s government was forced to drop its plan when a leading national newspaper reported that Forest Minister Peerzada Ghulam Ahmad Shah was planning to appoint 60 hand-picked youths, including his own daughter and a separatist leader’s son, on so-called ‘ad hoc’ basis. The idea was to subsequently regularise the appointees against the substantive vacancies of AD in FPF.

But cognizance by media and judiciary brought no relief to hundreds of the unemployed youths with graduation, post-graduation or doctorate in Forestry. Many of them crossed the qualifying age bar while a number of them chose to pick up inferior jobs like orderly, Rehbar-e-Taleem teacher, clerks and drivers. Others kept running from pillar to post in search of a job but failed to get one. Even some marriages and engagements broke as the boy or the girl carried the ignominious tag of ‘unemployed’.

The Minister’s daughter had DDR training and the separatist leader’s son another course. Neither of them was equivalent to Bachelor of Forestry (B Sc Forestry). While as the separatist leader managed to absorb his son through backdoor in a University, the Minister sent his daughter to pursue MBBS. She has been working as a doctor in the State Health Department for long. Thereafter, successive governments of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti demonstrated no will to either fill up the 60 vacancies of AD in FPF or provide employment to 800-odd Forestry graduates and post-graduates. Doors for them remained permanently shut in Forest Department, J&K State Forest Corporation, J&K State Pollution Control Board, Social Forestry Department, FPF and other departments and organisations in Forest sector.

Why exactly has the Government for 20 years slept over this issue and failed to make Recruitment Rules that would have helped Public Service Commission (PSC) and Services Selection Board (SSB) to make selection of candidates for appointment as ADs?

“There was, in fact, a bunch of litigations. Some people wanted the rules and recruitment on the pattern of Police Department while as others insisted that these should be based on merit and qualification as in Forest and other civil departments”, Commissioner-Secretary Forest Mohammad Afzal Bhat told STATE TIMES. “Finally, the J&K High Court clubbed the writ petitions and gave us direction last month to notify the Recruitment Rules within two months. We have accordingly redrafted the Rules and currently the same are pending with Department of Administrative Reforms, Inspections and Training. I am sure, we will notify the same within two months”.

According to Commissioner-Secretary Forest, the FPF Recruitment Rules would be duly processed and cleared by Departments of ARI Training, General Administration Department, Chief Minister and Department of Law. Thereafter, these would be notified by way of SRO by Department of Law.

Insiders, however, are pessimistic. "Our politicians and bureaucrats have huge vested interest in absence of technically qualified staff in Forest sector. When you have these vacancies filled up with young and energetic Forest officers who would come from PSC or SSB, who will provide timber free of cost to hundreds of influential politicians and officers in Friends Enclave and other posh colonies?", said an official, insisting that he may not be identified.

Without providing job to a single of the 800 unemployed Forestry graduates, Mehbooba Mufti’s Cabinet on June 22, 2016, reorganised the cadres in FPF. Out of the 60 gazetted posts of AD (which were equivalent to gazetted Range Officer Grade-I in pay scale of 9300—34800/GP 4280), 30 posts were downgraded and named as AD Grade-II and made equivalent to non-gazetted Range Officers Grade-II in pay scale of 9300—34800/GP 4200). At the same time, 30 posts of Inspectors (equivalent to Forester in pay scale of 5200—20,200/GP 2800) were upgraded to the level of AD-II.

Now only 15 vacancies of AD-I will be filled up directly through PSC while as the remaining 15 vacancies of AD-I, besides all the 60 vacancies of AD-II, have been reserved for promotion of in-service Inspectors. It has further reduced prospects of a job for the unemployed qualified and trained Forestry graduates in FPF.

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[Published in today’s STATE TIMES]