Prof Javed Mughal
Sometimes sitting in the tiny world of my musings I reflect for a while on whether it is a sin or a crime to be a gazetted employee especially the gazetted teachers. The employees in general and the gazetted teachers in particular are in fact suffocating in this rotten system of administration where there is none to strike the balance and maintain justice at all. All atrocities, in the name of tax deduction, application of rules and regulations, transfers and postings and countless other issues, are inflicted on the govt. officials now-a-days. As compared to other silver-spooned departments, the gazetted teaching component of Education Department is the worst sufferer at the moment.
When it comes to the point of tax deduction, these lecturers and professors are the highest tax paying section of govt. sector as compared to their counterparts in other departments but when there arises the question of reflecting due credit upon them, they are relegated to the background; and whenever there is some opportunity on the part of the Govt. to be availed of by them, they always lag behind on one pretext or the other. Even if they have to apply for the release of their provident fund, their bills keep on changing tables in the treasury office for days together and they have to wait extra-ordinarily just because these teachers do not like and afford to grease the palms of the concerned. If, God forbid, they have to visit the tehsil headquarter or elsewhere to get some necessary documents, they have to stand in queue for hours together. Who is responsible for all this plight of the teaching community is a debatable issue but the corrupt attitude and criminal conscience of the system is also one of the major factors. Contrary to this teaching fraternity, the other departments, including the very administrative section of the Education Department, although drawing a little lesser amount of salary but otherwise making huge sums of money, are allowed to have a safe passage from all rules and regulations. Black incomes are preferred in India because white money is not allowed by the Government to stay with their owners without imposing restrictions on them. Now the tax payers do manage even fake documents for saving tax. If a survey is conducted into the tax details of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, I am sure that we shall spot out thousands of fake evidences submitted for evading the tax deduction. But one thing most important that I have studied and observed is that in fact the Government itself has opened a multi-window system of corruption by launching many atrocious and exploitative schemes in India in general and in our state in particular. I have very closely noticed one and all in the Secretariat and subordinate levels of administration devoid of all pity and sympathy for the extremely hapless and hopeless lot of the society. One of the steps taken by the erstwhile coalition Sarkar was to issue a circular in 2014 making it mandatory for all the gazetted officers of the state to go for a Baseless and impractical Medi-claim Policy with the ICICI Bank. It has been an obnoxious culture prevalent only in our state that whenever some Bank from outside the state steps into the territory of J&K state, it, first of all gets into a tie-up with our Government for direct support to strengthen its grounds here and the Government in exchange for hefty gift vouchers worth millions of rupees orders the deduction of big amounts from the salaries of the Govt. Servants and depositing into these Banks publicly butchering the children of the poor employees. This happened for the first time when it was declared obligatory by the then Government for all the employees to open their salary accounts with J&K Bank. It was off-course an autocratic step by the Government in a democratic set-up. Before that the J&K Bank was in regular financial slump.
The Government caused its face to shine upon this bank and it flourished. The employed segment has always been used as a tool to uplift the defunct organizations in our state. The employee is the only legal scapegoat at the moment in the state and everywhere else. It is said that circular was issued with the connivance of the concerned departments and their ministers in lieu of a hefty amount of bribe-money because they had to contest elections in prochain future. According to the circular an amount of Rs 6080 p.a. is to be deducted from the salary of all the gazetted officers of the state in the month of February ever year and it has to be done for three consecutive years.
Thereafter there shall be no deduction and no policy benefit either. All money gifted to this bank will be belched out. It is a sort of gambling which is otherwise prohibited in India. I don’t have any objection to this Mediclaim policy but the point to shocked about at the mentality of the Government is that the hospitals that have been recommended in the Mediclaim Policy calendar are totally mal-functioning and ill-equipped and it was evident to the Government that neither these hospitals do have any sophisticated infrastructure nor the patients prefer visiting these hospitals. It is pertinent to say that more than ninety percent beneficiaries of the said policy are not even aware of more than eighty percent of these hospitals.
Deliberately the Government allowed the ICICI Bank to mention these hospitals in the Mediclaim calendar. No branded hospital like AIIMS, PGI Chandigarh, Max Hospital Delhi, Ganga Ram Hospital, Amandeep Hospital Amritsar, SKIMS Kashmir, GMC Jammu, Neuro Sciences Hospital Bangalore or any other standard hospital of India has been approved for the purpose and the then Government did so just because these are the over demanded hospitals and the Bank is likely to bear heavy expenditures of the patients. If some ill fated patients left with no other option happen to visit any of these recommended hospitals, they are reported to be disappointed either by the infrastructural plight of these hospitals or by their rough and indifferent attitude. And then process of getting this financial assistance on account of treatment has been made so difficult that while fulfilling the formalities, there are very less chances for the patient to survive if he is grappling with some life staking disease.
It has also been reported that most of the patients having no political influence are blatantly refused admissions in these hospitals and the rest who are lucky enough to have registration for treatment in any of these authorized health care centers, they are asked to deposit money with the hospital first and then claim it from the bank on their own and the concerned hospitals decline to have any liaison with the ICICI Bank. Under such circumstances the plight of the patients goes from bad to worse and the worst too. Keeping all these aspects of this Mediclaim Policy the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir was kind enough to exempt all the employees of judiciary from the shackles of this exploitative policy but rest of the State Gazetted Officers have been left to suffer. Some of the delegations have approached the current Government that has entered into the arena of power with much sky meddling commitments, for the revocation or withdrawal of this Mediclaim scheme and let us hope some favorable outcome.
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