Srinagar: A day after the government scrapped nearly 1500 jobs in Jammu and Kashmir Bank, the mainstream political parties here have reacted sharply over the action, terming it as an attempt to the autonomy of the bank.
According to wire service—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the mainstream political parties in Jammu and Kashmir including National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) demanded government to revisit its decision.
The government on late Thursday announced scraping of ongoing process of recruitment for 1200 banking associates and 250 probationary officers and asked the finance department to advise the J&K bank to initiate a fresh, fair, norm-based and transparent recruitment for these posts through the IBPS.
Former finance minister Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari censured the sinister designs being carried out to play with the careers of lakhs of educated unemployed youth of Jammu and Kashmir.
Taking serious cognizance of scrapping of recruitment process, Bukhari said that the exercise had started and concluded under Governor’s rule and not under any political government in the erstwhile State.
“Two years after this three phase examination was conducted that too in Governor S.P Malik’s tenure, which drove lakhs of qualified aspirants from all the regions of Jammu and Kashmir, the present dispensation has shamelessly declared that process as null and void. It is simply disgusting that it took J&K administration two years to reveal what it has now termed as ‘legal infirmities’ found in that recruitment process,” Bukhari said.
He said that the latest government action is without any reason or rationale. “The latest move of the L.G led administration has corroborated the prevailing perceptions among people of both divisions of Jammu and Kashmir that the careers and talent of our youth is being crushed under a well thought out and a planned manner,” he added.
Talking to—KNO, National Conference (NC) provincial spokesman Imran Nabi Dar while questioning the government move said that who will return the “two precious years of 1450 young and budding flowers of Kashmir—250 Probationary Officers and 1200 Banking Associates.”
“Government should revisit the decision and not come under pressure from any quarter,” Dar said.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) expressed concern over the government’s action and termed it as ‘unwarranted and akin to plunge the youth who qualified the exams into distress and devastation’.
Questioning the decision, PDP spokesman said that it has raised alarm over the uninvited, scandalous bureaucratic infiltration into an otherwise JK’s premier independent and autonomous financial institution. “At a time when the probe was in the process and no findings have so far proved, any partiality or favouritism done in the recruitment process in the Jammu and Kashmir Bank is putting a question mark,” he said.
Underscoring the need to uphold the independence of the bank which has served as a premier financial institution of Jammu and Kashmir, the party has stated that the government at present wants to infiltrate into its ranks in order to grab its control, complicate its functioning and ruin it to the core with ruthless bureaucratization—(KNO)
