At the time of economic meltdown when jobs have been lost in the private sector in Jammu and Kashmir,the State government has no plans to fire the contractual employees who were put to work by the previous Ghulam Nabi Azad government. Jammu and Kashmir Finance Minister,Abdul Rahim Rather,said that the government was not for terminating the services of contractual employees in the state and their term has been extended till September this year. J-K has 1519 ad hoc employees and 4137 contractual employees working in the state. He,in fact said that a committee has been constituted to review the regularisation of the job of contractual employees and it will give the report by August this year. After the government took over two months back,the fate of contractual employees was in a limbo. However with the Finance Minister clearing that it was not for showing them the door,the government policy to keep up with the practice of employing people on contractual basis to meet the manpower shortage will continue. The Finance Minister even said that while putting the contractual employees on a permanent job,they will also be given an age relaxation. Earlier,before the polls in the state,the government decided to bring legislation through an ordinance,for regularising the services of ad hoc and contractual employees. However after Omar Abdullah took over as a Chief Minister,the state cabinet in its meeting held on February 19 again considered the issue and constituted a committee comprising of the Advocate General,Principal Secretary Law and Commissioner Secretary,Finance and Commissioner Secretary,General Administration Department (GAD) to examine legal and financial issues involved in the regularisation of contractual employees. The committee will give its report by August 2009. The Finance Minister said that despite economic meltdown,the government will continue to employ people. He said that the government has identified 3735 fresh vacancies in gazetted and non-gazetted cadres during last two months,out of which,1757 vacancies have already been referred to recruitment agencies for filling them up. He said that the recruitment agencies have been asked to speed up the process to fill the vacancies. From the time coalition government assumed office,it has recruited 6203 people in the last two months and the recruitment was done by Service Selection Board (SSB) in the non-gazetted category. Public Service Commission (PSC) has also made 412 selections in gazetted cadre during the same period, Rather said. Jammu and Kashmir government will also seek to speed up the process of recruitments by monitoring it from time to time. Government has formulated the Jammu and Kashmir civil services reference of vacancies and holding of meetings of departmental promotion committee rules,2005,under which it has been mandatory for the government departments to refer the vacancies falling under direct recruitment quota to the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission and the Jammu and Kashmir Service Selection Board by 15 of January every year.
