Lt Governor Manoj Sinha asking bureaucrats to accommodate local youth in the execution of development projects during his inauguration of several developmental projects recently in Jammu region but not in Kashmir valley amid a growing trust deficit developed by discrimination in the selections of banking associates in J&K Bank is by no standards of understandabilities a good omen for regional balancing in Jammu & Kashmir . Government may agree or disagree but irrefutable fact is that regional discrimination shown in the selection of 1500 banking associates in J&K Bank has already deepened sense of alienation among the educated jobless youth in Kashmir valley. Though almost all the mainstream political parties have questioned the unprecedented dip in the proportional representation of Kashmiri youth for the first time in the J&K Bank selections but the government has not taken serious note of the allegations and observations of political parties and civil society groups of Kashmir valley on this count. Very genuinely the issue is not only of regional share of Kashmiri youth in the J&K Bank selections but also of transparency in selections. Question can be asked that when allegations about the transparency in the selections are very serious and worth investigation, the government can’t deny action simply by trashing the allegations baseless without seriously looking into them on the basis of merit.
To keep it’s word on regional balancing both in the selections and as well as the execution of developmental projects and also the transparency in the recruitment processes, the government will have to announce an impartial probe into the allegations of discrimination in recent selections for the posts of banking associates.
Morality demands that allegations about the transparency in the selections are investigated by a neutral probe panel and facts are brought to light to clear the doubts about the transparency in the selections. Interestingly since the downgrading of Jammu & Kashmir from a state to a union territory the youth of Kashmir have not only been denied a due share in the government jobs but jobs availed by thousands of Kashmiri engineers in the construction works of the engineering departments have also been taken away from them by unnecessarily scrapping all the self help groups (SHGs) formed almost two decades ago. While the share of the local populations in government jobs has been already hugely neutralized with the application of a new hostile domicile law in Jammu & Kashmir, the unprecedented dip in the selections of Kashmiri youth for the posts of banking associates would surely set a bad trend of discrimination in selection of youth for the jobs in both public and private sector. To keep it’s word on regional balancing both in the selections and as well as the execution of developmental projects and also the transparency in the recruitment processes, the government will have to announce an impartial probe into the allegations of discrimination in recent selections for the posts of banking associates .
