Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Aug 26: The State Government today defended the job policy introduced in 2011 which was scrapped after coalition partners received a drubbing in the Parliamentary elections held earlier this year, saying it was not flawed but made after a “well thought out” plan.
“Government had tremendous pressure under non- plan expenditure as it had to spent Rs 5,500 crore on the salaries of its employees. This year the salary expenditure have soared to Rs 18,000 crore,” Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather told Legislative Council in reply to a question of principal opposition People’s Democratic Party’s MLC, Syed Asghar Ali .
Rather said the Government had made the new job policy after a well thought out plan in view of the financial situation in the state.
He informed the house that they have huge burden of salaries on non-plan expenditures and “a time will come when any Government would have to spend the whole finances on the salaries of the employees”.
“The new recruitment scheme was better than Rehber-e-Taleem scheme,” he said.
The Minister however, said that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah received many representations from people in particular from unemployed youth who wanted it to scrapped.
“Later, we revisited the policy after both the Legislative Houses of the state wanted it to be revisited. We respected the houses,” he said.
But PDP spokesman Naeem Akhtar said the policy was scrapped because the ruling parties took the drubbing in the parliamentary elections.
However, Rather made it clear that those employed between 2010 (under the new job policy) and 21 March 2014 (after the policy was scrapped) would not be given any retrospective effect.
But the reply irked the PDP member Asgar Ali who said why the Government won’t give retrospective effect to 5000 youth recruited between 2010-2011 and March 2014.
Rather made it clear that there is no question of giving retrospective effect to those employed under the policy before it was scrapped.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel