Bhat Zaieem: SRO 202 a modern form of slavery was framed to fulfil the lust of policymakers for money by sipping the blood of youth. It is said that the future of a society lies in the hands of youth and with a surprising irony here the reverse is happening. The reason is not the youth themselves, but the policymakers whose eyes have become hazy due to their undue lust for status and money. This kind of modern slavery has degraded the zeal and zest of new employees to work.
Although the SRO 202 employees left no stone unturned for trying to remove such absurd policy. But the government consistently from last three years gave false assurances to such employees and had salted their already deep wounds. How unfortunate is that the youth who have doctorate and post graduate degrees and get selected through a cut throat competition are nourished with such policies as a reward to their diligent work of twenty years.Such employees are selected through JKPSC and JKSSB,where the success rate is just 2-5%.
Leaving the efficient youth in trouble for sake of themselves is no less than a turmoil for them. And I remember when the candidates would frequently pressurise the govt to scrap the
The policy has inflicted a vigour of corruption and nepotism in the minds of new employees.The mark of disloyalty with their service will get a new height and they do have a solid reason for it and that is ignorance of the govt. When they are not treated with equal pay as their old counterparts, the have started the other ways of earning on the same table. ‘Right to Equality ‘ has been shattered deeply here. The Supreme Court order ‘ Equal Pay for Equal Work’ has been rendered meaningless with negligible application here. In short this policy has been a bruise over the policies of the governance.
Moreover according to the rules of this ordinance every recruitment made under it must be completed within a period of three months and appointment order to be issued within 15 days from the date of issuance of selection list.That is posts were to be filled under fast track basis.But they failed here also as almost all the selections done under this policy took more than one and half years on average to complete and appointment orders also were issued accordingly with same sluggish speed and took two to three months for formal appointment orders for all the advertisements. Means appointees have to spend and stagnate for more than 08 years under this arbitrary policy.
SRO 202 clearly mentions the reckoning of seniority from the date of its first appointment. Contrary, it is creating seniority disputes and atmosphere of animosity among Cadres/employees and resultantly acting as a fodder for litigations. No pay protection is provided to in-service candidates as per CSR. Law and Finance Department already held it against the provisions of CSR and explicitly advised that provisions of SRO-202 are not applicable to in service candidates who applied through proper channel.
Coming to the financial burden for the government of these SRO202 employees, that is very meagre almost negligible with respect to total financial implications of state. Till now merely ten thousand appointments have been made under this policy. With the implementation of the seventh pay commission, the difference in salary between sro 202 employees and their non sro 202 counterparts has been severely reduced and is ranging between four thousand to six thousand.S o increasing these few thousand rupees for some ten thousand employees has very less financial implications for government.
Elections are very near and the issue has tremendously heated up. The youth have a lot of hopes from the governor who is seeming to be much curious to remove corruption and inculcate transparency in the system. The revocation of the policy is the only way out now and it must come to end before dirty politics is being played on it.
(The author is presently working in the department of education government of J&K. He can be reached at [email protected])