Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, July 5: In one of the biggest frauds of promotion to the employees in the Agriculture Department, 121 vacancies of Agriculture Extension Officers (AEOs) in Agriculture Production Department (APD), have been manipulated by the officials of the department to promote Village Extension Workers (VEWs) illegally.
The fraud has been exposed in response to an application filed by Advocate Fayaz Ahmad Bhat on May 15, 2013, seeking information from the Agriculture Department under Right to Information Act.
The response to the RTI that came over a month later has revealed that the department has manipulated the vacancies of AEOs in the department to help 61 promotees.
According to Recruitment Rules of the Agriculture Gazetted Service notified vide order no 179 dated 2/6/1988, total sanctioned strength of AEOs in the department was 598 and 467 officers were in position while there were 68 vacancies as on 02/06/1988.
A Government order No 10 Agri of 2002 dated 25-10-2002 shows that total sanctioned strength of AEOs in the department was 625 and 467 officers were in position while there were 158 vacancies on the same date 02/06/1988.
The minutes of the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) held on January 2, 2013 shows that total sanctioned strength of AEOs in the department was 603 and 414 officers were in position while there were 189 vacancies on the same date – 02/06/1988.
The department promoted 67 VEWs as AEOs on 19th March 2013 vide Government order No 113-Agri of 2013 and they have kept 28 more promotions pending as Vigilance clearance and Annual Performance Report of these candidates was awaited. These promotions were made against 34 available vacancies but the officials of the department manipulated the vacancies to help the promotees at the cost of Public Service Commission Recruited candidates.
The vacancies were created illegally in place of officials who left the department and 53 of them of the department who left between 1998 and 2005 joined the Agriculture University.
In order to help the promotees, the department terminated 20 officers under Government order no 145 Agri of 2013 dated 5/4/2013. They were terminated as the department alleged that they had left the department without seeking proper permission.
All these candidates who left the department, however, had applied in the Agriculture University through Agriculture Department as departmental candidates and were relieved from the department before joining the Agriculture University.
Three of these candidates who figure in the terminated list of 20 for not seeking Agriculture Department permission for applying in Agriculture University are Nayeema Jabeen Shah, Manzoor Ahmad Rengrez and Nissar Ahmad Bhat. They were figuring at serial number 236, 276 and 306 respectively in the seniority list of 2002 while in the 2013 seniority list they are not figuring anywhere.
All the three were relieved by the Agriculture Department under relieving order number Agri/E/45/GAZ/99/2872-75 dated 17/05/99 but were terminated for not seeking permission of leaving the department.
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