An In-charge has to die as an In-charge

Showkat Ahmad Wani
The school education department is one of the biggest department of the State with largest man power. In Education Department almost 70% of positions of gazetted cadre are manned by in-charge officers. Approximately more than 50% positions are manned by in-charge lecturers , 80% by In-charge Headmasters and in-charge Principals control all positions of the cadre. Similarly in-charge ZEOs , in-charge Chief Education Officers, in-charge Joint Directors are managing most of the positions in the department. The officials working as in-charge officers in their own pay and grades (pay & grade prior to their in-charge promotions), are genuine employees working on substantive posts and are in the department from decades. They are given higher responsibility although in in-charge capacity with an assurance that that their in-charge promotion will be confirmed in due course of time. With other confirmed counterparts of their cadre, they sweat it out to see that objectives and programmes formulated by higher ups are implemented in letter and spirit.
They render their duties with zest and zeal, to the satisfaction of their seniors, with unfailing faith on the system that their services as in-charge will be confirmed and they will get the due right of confirmation to their promotion. Last time regularization took place in the year 2013, where in-charge Lecturers and in-charge Headmasters were confirmed , while as the cadres of in-charge principals, in-charge Zonal Education Officers , and others were left. In-charge Principals and I/c Zonal Education Officers are waiting for confirmation from year 2008. Thereafter from the year 2013 onwards, more than 3000 masters were promoted as I/c Lectures in various subjects strictly as per seniority and eligibility. Similarly in other cadres officials were promoted as I/c Headmasters, I/c Principals, I/c ZEO’s, I/c Chief Education Officers strictly as per seniority of feeding cadre, eligibility and standing norms. Placements as in-charges were granted to ensure smooth functioning of the department, vacancies at far flung areas were filled and various policies and programmes of the department penetrated to the ground level. Although number of in-charge officers piled in thousands , unfortunately for years no serious effort was made by department to confirm their services as per standing norms. Then in the year 2015, process to collect data of all in-charge officers of all cadres of education department was started by the department and it took department three years to collect the data .The data received from field revealed that there are more than ten thousand in-charge officers who have to be confirmed/regularized, almost fifty percent of the In-charge officers have either retired or expired, and collecting further data from the retired or from the families of expired will be a cumbersome job and humanely impossible. The then government realized that sending more than ten thousand cases of regularization to Public Service Commission (normal route of such confirmations) will take decades as same will be a herculean task for State Public Service Commission given the staff position of the agency. To settle this human issue in a humane manner, to confront the problem head on, to clear the back log of more than ten thousand officers, to tackle this extraordinary situation by extra ordinary measures, to restore the pensionary benefits to families of expired ones, retired ones, the then government in February 2018, granted one time exemption to education department to clear all the confirmation/regularization cases of all In-charge Officers of all cadres promoted till that date through an empowered committee headed by administrative Secretary School education with representatives from GAD, finance and both directors of education Jammu/Srinagar as members.
For one long year nothing substantial happened except demanding and collection of documents from the in-charge officers (working /retired / families of expired), but the desired results could not be fetched. Thereafter sensing gravity of this human travesty, the then State Administrative Council headed by Governor Satya Pal Malik once again granted one time exemption to education department to clear all cases of regularization of all cadres of Education Department through high powered committee constituted vide Govt. Order No. 115 GAD of 2019 Dated:23-01-2019. In July 2019 , the first DPC meeting of the committee was held under chairmanship of then Commissioner Secretary School Education Sarita Chowhan, where almost 384 in-charge officers of two cadres were confirmed. Although the beginning had been made , hopes of in-charge officers rekindled but who may have thought that time, that from then on, the left out thousands of unfortunate ones will be victimized, offended and maltreated by one way or the other way through various official dictates. Many administrative heads came, the left out in-charge officers knocked their doors, represented before them for the restoration of their right but nothing materialized.DPC meetings were fixed, postponed on one pretext or the other. Tentative and final seniority lists were uploaded to give an impression that preparations are being done for DPC but was not held. Number of expired in-charge officers kept on increasing with each passing day and so was the number of retired persons but justice did not prevail and restoration of due right was no where in sight. Irony being that recently DPC was held and the papers submitted last year were declared as expired and an official farman was issued that integrity certificates & vigilance clearance formats be submitted afresh. It will take six months to collect these papers once again and till the time the department receives them, takes its time to fix convenient date for DPC, these papers will again get expired and resultantly sufferers will be asked to submit fourth time.
Where from the family members of the expired officials will get these papers, the retirees, most of all are sick with health issues, and may once again have to go from pillar to post to collect the papers. It is against human values, ethics and morals. The officers at the helm of affairs should understand that for retired and expired it is only pension settlement in the grades they have worked and denying them same on one pretext or the other, entangling their confirmation in official intrigues speaks volumes of travesty and parody the human beings are put in. On one side the cycle of collection, submission and expiration of documents of in-charge officers will continue, on the other side in-charge officers will continue to leave for heavenly abodes and the dictum that an in-charge has to die as an in-charge will prevail. Travesty of justice, travesty of sacrifice. Nation builders put to highest degree of shame and ridicule.
(The author Teaches Political Science HSS D H Pora Kulgam)
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