Omar asks Govt to seek enhancement in ‘age relaxation’ for UPSC aspirants

Jammu: Leader of Opposition in the J-K Assembly Omar Abdullah Thursday demanded the government to seek enhancement from the centre for relaxation in upper age limit of the state’s youth appearing for Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister said the special dispensation, giving relaxation of five years in upper age limit in central services examinations, to students of J-K since 1995 should be revoked.
“The special dispensation was being renewed after every two years. We don’t know why was this stopped suddenly”, the National Conference (NC) leader said.
Batting strongly for the restoration of age relaxation, he alleged that with orders like these we “demoralise” and “alienate” the state’s youth instead of encouraging them.
“I want to bring this to the notice of the house that we are alienating our youth instead of encouraging them. We are demoralising them,” he added.
Questioning the state government over the centre’s decision, the NC leader said be it preparation, tuition money or energy spent by the student, everything will go into waste because of the order.
With that, Omar also took an apparent dig at Union Minister Jitendra Singh and said that this has happened with the state when the Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT) is headed by an MP from Jammu and Kashmir only.
The Deputy Speaker Nazir Gurezi, who was in the chair, also took serious note of the issue and asked the government to take up the matter with the centre and restore the five years of age relaxation.
Replying on the issue, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Abdul Rahman Veeri assured the house that they will meet Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and ask her to raise the issue with the Centre.