12 years on, District Admn Baramulla fail to publish selection list

Suhail Bhat
Srinagar, Aug 23: For hundreds of aspirants from North Kashmir’s Baramulla district, who have applied for recruitment to 204 Class IV posts of district cadre in 2006, getting a job has become an ordeal as the authorities have failed to publish the selection list, despite lapse of 12 years.
The aspirants said for last 12 years they have been running from pillar to post but their pleas went unheard. They said their hopes of getting a Government job has faded away due to the inordinate delay in the recruitment process.
“Everyday scores of aspirants visit the Deputy Commissioner office with a hope to see their names in the selection list but left with fake assurance from the officials,” Mushtaq Ahmad, an aspirant said, adding that the Governor’s recent intervention stirred hope among the aspirants but the local administration’s non-compliance has let them down.
In the month of June this year, the aspirants lodged a complaint with Governor’s grievance cell under endorsement number DDCB/2006 class 4th/8522-35, that their selection list was pending for the last 12 years. The grievance cell immediately raised the issue with the local administration who assured to release the list by or before 15th July 2018 but failed to do so, they said.
The aspirants alleged that the local administration passed on wrong information to the grievance cell whenever they were asked about the issue. “The local administration passed wrong information on two occasions. First the Deputy Commissioner Baramulla, Nasir Ahmad Naqash said that the list will be published on 15 July and later in his video message announced that list will be published in the first week of August,” Mushtaq Ahmad said, adding the authorities have been playing with the aspiration of the aspirants by withholding the selection list.
He said the recruitment process was halted for two years after some candidates who were left out of the interviews for having higher qualification moved to the court. “Initially people who were middle pass were asked to appear for interviews and the people with higher qualification moved to court as there was no bar for qualification. In 2015 court gave a decision in their favor and the recruitment process resumed,” he said.
The candidates said that the dallying tactics from the local administration was taking a toll on the psyche of the candidates. “Deputy Commissioner Baramulla, Nasir Ahmad Naqash and Director Planning Abdul Gani Malik, who head the recruitment committee have been giving wrong assurances to the candidates,” Tajamul Islam, another aspirant said, adding that some of the candidates passed away in past 12 years while most of them crossed their age bar.
The candidates said that all the districts of Jammu and Kashmir published the same lists years ago and selected candidates got several promotions but only “this northern district failed to release the list.”