Interviews for Class-IV posts abolished

Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, July 17: Governor N N Vohra today chaired the 5th meeting of the State Administrative Council (SAC) at Raj Bhavan.
Advisors to the Governor, B B Vyas Vijay Kumar and Khurshid Ahmad Ganai besides Chief Secretary, B V R Subrahmanyam attended the meeting.
The SAC deliberated upon the various proposals submitted by Administrative departments for its consideration and approval.
In a decision with far-reaching consequences, the SAC abolished interviews for all Class IV posts in the State.  This comes into effect immediately except for those posts for which selection process has already been initiated.
In future, all recruitment for Class IV posts under State, Divisional and District Cadres and also for Companies, Organizations and Bodies substantially owned or controlled by the Government, will be done through the Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection Board (JKSSB).
The General Administration Department will pool all the Class IV vacancies available in different Departments in the State at all levels and refer them to the SSB,  which will draw-up a fixed annual calendar to ensure time bound selection against Class IV posts.  The selection will be made based on merit secured in the written examination up to the level equivalent to the 10th standard.
This decision will be implemented through an SRO notification and will be a horizontal cross-cutting decision applicable to all existing Recruitment Rules of all departments/agencies.  This decision will ensure transparency, fairness, accountability and equitable opportunities of employment to aspiring youth of Jammu and Kashmir at this level.
The SAC decision will speed-up the selection process against these posts which takes considerable time in the present scenario.
It may be mentioned here that Union MoS in PMO Dr Jitendra Singh had written five times to former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to cancel interviews for Class-IV appointments but to no avail. However, he wrote a similar letter to the Governor on July 13 and the order for cancelling interviews for Class-IV appointments was issued within five days.
The SAC approved enhancement of Fixed Traveling Allowance (FTA) from existing limit of Rs 15 to Rs 100 per month in favor of Village Level Workers (VLWS’s) / Multipurpose Workers (MPWs) working with the Rural Development Department.
The VLWs/MPWs visit the field for monitoring the works undertaken in the Panchayats, facilitate Panchayat meetings, supervise the assets of Panchayats and also verify the muster sheets of different works and hence are involved in extensive touring within their jurisdiction. VLWs were entitled for FTA at the rate of Rs 15 monthly and this had not been revised since 1978. The VLWs/MPWs had time and again represented before the Government for enhancement of FTA.
The decision of the SAC to enhance the FTA will benefit as many as 3314 VLWs/MPWs across the State.
The SAC accorded sanction to the promotion of 27 officers of the J&K Excise & Taxation (Gazetted) Service to the Time Scale of the J&K Administrative Service in the Pay Band of Rs 15600-3900 with GP of Rs 6600.
The SAC approved the launch of a big-ticket Employment Generation programme namely “J&K Rural Employment Generation Programme (JKREGP)” with an annual outlay of Rs 50 Crore to start with.
The new scheme will target 1500 unemployed youth annually in the initial phase and will be implemented by J&K Khadi Village & Industries Board (KVIB) from the financial year 2018-19. The scheme is being launched with an objective to harness and channelize energy and entrepreneurial skills of rural unemployed youth towards productive enterprise in micro industrial sector and to create employment opportunities for them.
The Scheme shall be a Direct Benefit Transfer / Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme with term loan equivalent to 60% of the project cost to be provided by the financial institutions with the Government subsidy in the shape of Margin Money of 35% in rural areas/villages across all categories. The beneficiary shall be required to put his share, equivalent to 5% of the project cost up to Rs.25.00 lakh.
The Scheme covers around 18 activities under Agro & Food Processing Industry, 12 activities under Forest Based Industry, 7 activities under Handmade Paper/Fiber Products, 8 activities under Mineral Based Products, 8 activities under Polymer & Chemical Based Industry, 14 activities under Rural Engineering & Biotechnology, 27 activities under Service Industry and 17 activities under Textiles. The Scheme provides detailed guidelines relating to eligibility of persons for availing benefits.
Over the years several initiatives like UDAAN, HIMAYAT, Seed Capital Fund Scheme, Youth Start-up Loan Scheme and Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) have been taken up to provide gainful employment and employability to youth of Jammu and Kashmir, where the unemployment rate is highest in the country followed by states like Kerala and Assam.
Of these PMEGP is the most sought programme implemented by KVIB and District Industries Centres (DICs).  The programme though having shown good results has faced a limit of annual targets vis-à-vis the number of aspirants.

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