Lower castes to fight for their rights in Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu, India, 25.03.2007: All India Confederation of SC/ST Organizations J&K, in a one day convention of SC/ST and OBCs held at Abhinav theatre here today, impressed upon the State govt. to amend Reservation Act and the SRO-294.
It may be mentioned here that the state govt has passed Reservation Act in 2004 and that of rules were framed in 2005 in shape of SRO-294. SC/ST & OBCs communities were not satisfied with the reservation policy of the state Govt. and launched a state wide struggle to get the Act and SRO-294 amended.
Criticizing the Govt. for the undue delay in amending the Reservation Act-2004 and the reservation rules in SRO-294, R.K.Kalsotra President of Confederation, said that it has been for last two years that the Confederation held a series of demonstration at all Tehsil and District levels and submitted the memoranda to the state govt. which in turn took this issue very lightly.
He further said that the Govt. has just befooled them by merely constituting initially a cabinet sub-committee which was supposed to submit its report within one month followed by the constitution of another committee of Secretaries chaired by the Chief Secretary to submit its report with in ten days.
The Confederation also passed a resolution to hold a mass rally on 14th April on the Birth Anniversary of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar and issued appeal to Chief Minister to come with amended SRO-294 or to face the public wrath.
Among others demands debated and highlighted in this Convention included reservation in district cadre posts as per population ratio, raising of reservation level in promotion upto Director post, clearance of backlog in recruitment and promotion, reservation in private sector, political reservation to STs, Issue of OBC Certificate on caste basis but not on profession basis and scrapping the proposal of granting Scheduled Tribe to the elites classes and to to implementation of Mandal Commission Report.
Cutting across the party lines, Nazir Gurezi, Yahspal Kundal and Master Tasduq Hussain assured their full support to Confederation struggle.
On this occasion, the leaders of Backward Classes Federation of India (BCFI) have announced to be join hands with Confederation in the ongoing struggle.