*Record damaged in 2014 floods yet to be reconstructed
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, June 15: Accusing the General Administration and ARI and Training Departments for not initiating required steps to ensure its smooth functioning, the J&K Board of Professional Entrance Examination (JKBOPEE) has said that both the departments have been sleeping over the proposals vis-à-vis creation of adequate staff and physical infrastructure during the past quite long time.
In its Annual Report for the year 2015 tabled in the Legislative Assembly today, the Board of Professional Entrance Examination headed by G H Tantray has prominently highlighted the problems and issues of concern, which have not been taken seriously by the Government particularly the ARI and Trainings and General Administration Departments.
The Board, as per the report, is lacking required physical infrastructure, which includes full-fledged IT Section with trained staff. “The Board is still faced with the problems of lack of required physical infrastructure although the issue of construction of its own building at Jammu and Srinagar is being regularly pursued with ARI and Trainings Department and GAD”, the report said.
“The proposal for creation of staff for BOPEE including IT Section has since been submitted to the Government and is being pursued vigorously but till date actual creation has not taken place”, the BOPEE has regretted in the report, adding “there is also absence of permanent staff of the desired level”.
It is pertinent to mention here that Chief Minister is the Minister Incharge of General Administration Department and still the proposals of the Board of Professional Entrance Examination prepared by none else than its Chairman, a former Law Secretary, are being ignored. This speaks about level of non-seriousness of those at the helm of affairs in the General Administration Department.
In the report, the BOPEE has once again shown dream of introducing video-conferencing facilities for counseling of candidates for various courses at Jammu and Srinagar offices for 2016 and has claimed that necessary equipment has already been installed at the respective offices. “It will save a lot of students’ precious time apart from expenditure on travelling from one division to other for counseling”, the report said.
This is not for the first time that BOPEE has spoken about video-conferencing facilities. Even in the past, the Chairman spoke about this a lot but without any tangible result on ground. Mr Tantray soon after taking over as Chairman of Board in October 2014 had also announced that video-conferencing facilities would be provided to the students.
How would the Board be able to start video-conferencing facilities in the absence of full-fledged IT Section with trained staff remains a million dollar question.
The Board has also failed to retrieve and reconstruct the record which was damaged due to devastating floods of September 2014.
This is evident from the report, which states: “Efforts have been made to retrieve/reconstruct the damaged records. Moreover, maintenance of office records, machinery and equipments are being streamlined and digitized”. However, the report is completely silent about progress made in retrieval and reconstruction of damaged records despite the fact that nearly two years have lapsed since the devastating floods of 2014.
In the report, the Board has claimed that under J&K Right To Information Act, the information required to be put on the official website under Section-4(a) has been hosted and is providing complete on-line submission of application form facility for all professional courses. This includes on-line payment of fees, on-line downloading of admit cards for all courses etc.
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