Srinagar, May 03: Unemployed agriculture graduates have decried the new job policies of agriculture production department (APD) as according to them, SRO 442 and 443 of APD are “harsh” in a sense that they make “direct recruitment quota” negligible as compared to “promotional recruitment quota”.
The agriculture graduates said, “As per SRO 443 Agriculture Extension Officer (AEO) posts are filled with 80% through promotional basis and 20 % through direct recruitment. Hitherto as per SRO-179 AEO posts were filled with ratio of 50:50, 50% through direct recruitment and 50% for promotional quota. New SRO violates our rights to equal opportunity.”
“Similarly, SRO 442 was inducted in 2017 which was shock for us .As per The SRO all the posts of Junior Agriculture Extension Officer (JAEO)are to be filled on promotional bases. Early as per SRO-02 these posts were filled with ratio of 60:40 on direct and promotional bases respectively,” they added.
They said that Village Agriculture Extension Assistants (VAEAs) are being promoted to JAEO. VAEs don’t have enough expertise to be JAEO. Agriculture Graduates and PhD holders are being ignored.
The aspirants also expressed dissatisfaction over non filling of various posts in APD. “Despite various posts lying vacant in state Agriculture Production Department (APD), hundreds of Agriculture Graduates are without jobs in Jammu and Kashmir.”
“Hundreds of posts under direct recruitment quota are lying vacant in APD from more than one decade and only posts under promotional quota are being referred to recruiting agency. APD recently furnished details about vacant posts of Agriculture Extension Assistants (AEA), which are lying vacant and till date it has not referred these posts to recruiting agency,” they said.
“It has been more than a decade now and not a single post of Agriculture Extension Officer (AEO) has been referred for recruitment under direct recruitment quota,” they added.
They appealed the Governor administration to revoke SRO-442 and 443 which according to them is draconian.
When contacted director APD said, “I can’t change service rules as these SROs have been formulated by the government.”
“We have recently referred 137 posts of Agriculture extension assistants to government for recruitment. We will refer more posts for recruitment in 2019,” he added.
