Cabinet approves jobs on contract

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 19

In a significant decision, the state government today announced that a new recruitment policy had been formulated to make appointment against gazetted and non-gazetted vacancies on contractual basis. The decision would not be applicable to the posts referred to recruiting agencies for selection.

Announcing the decision taken by the Cabinet here today, Education Minister Naeem Akhter said at a press conference that persons appointed on contractual basis under the new recruitment policy would be regularised after putting in seven years of satisfactory service.

He said the decision would help the government fill vacancies of assistant surgeons, lecturers and teachers from among locals at the district level.

The persons selected would have to work in the specified area during the term of their contractual engagement. This would help the government cope up with manpower shortage in the crucial sectors in remote and far-flung areas of the state.

Akhter said the policy paper for making contractual appointments at the district level envisaged a transparent and merit-based fast-track process of selection for filling key vacancies at the cutting-edge level to tone up the delivery of 

public services.

He said the Jammu and Kashmir Special Recruitment Ordinance 2015 was approved by the Cabinet to facilitate the operationalisation of the new recruitment policy at the earliest, which would now be submitted to the Governor for issuing the Ordinance.

Enumerating the broader parameters of the draft Jammu and Kashmir Special Recruitment Ordinance 2015, Akhter said it authorised the state government to exempt certain posts or classes of posts from the purview of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission and the Services Selection Board.

He said it empowered the government to lay down a policy for making appointments against notified posts on a regular or contractual basis in the prescribed manner.

He said it empowered the government to prescribe the mode of selection for such notified posts and provided regularisation of persons appointed on contractual basis on the completion of seven years of continuous contractual service.

He said it laid down the constitution of an empowered committee in the Finance Department for considering cases of contractual appointees eligible for regularisation and making recommendations in this regard.

He said the proposed legislation provided for the repeal of the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act 2010 with a saving provision to protect the regularisation of ad hoc, contractual, consolidated and 

temporary appointees eligible for such regularisation under that Act.

Akhter said the Cabinet approved the relaxation of norms to ensure that the maximum number of farmers whose agricultural and horticultural produce had been damaged due to natural calamities were entitled to relief under State Disaster Response Force.

The Education Ministersaid the Cabinet approved the promotion of around 170 Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) officers and IAS officers, which had been hanging fire due to litigation and other issues since 1999.

The Cabinet accorded its sanction to the promotion of 10 IAS officers to the selection grade of the IAS with effect from January 1. In another decision, the Cabinet ordered the release of the selection grade of the KAS in favour of 171 officers.

The Cabinet accorded its sanction to the transfer of 61 kanals and 15 marlas of land at Jaganoo village in Udhampur district to the Jammu and Kashmir Technical Education Department for the construction of a government polytechnic.