Jammu, March 3 (Scoop News) – Making a statement in the House about the regularisation of the Rehbar-e-Zirat, the Minister for Agriculture GH Mir said the State Government decided to engage agricultural graduates, who had acquired degrees up to ending October 2006, as Rehbar-e-Zirat (R-e-Zs)’ on a monthly stipend of Rs 1500/-. Accordingly, 3227 agriculture graduates were registered in pursuance of Govt Order No. 20/Agri of 2007, dated February 6, 2007.The above stipend was later revised to Rs 3000 p.m in respect of those personnel who were willing to be deployed at the panchayat level and stay in close interface with the farmers, he said.
Mir said however, soon after their engagement, these personnel started clamouring for regularization of their services on the analogy of the teachers under the Rehbar-e-Taleem Scheme. He said the decision to engage them as ‘Rehbars’ was a standalone decision, absolutely divorced from the R-e-T Scheme’. This is borne out by the absence of drawing any parallel with the R-e-T Scheme’ in the executive orders that have been issued until now on the subject, he added.
He said both these schemes are absolutely different in form and content; for instance, unlike the R-e-T Scheme’, where the engagements have been carried out against the clear vacancies, the process of engagement of the ‘R-e-Zs’, on the other hand, has been vacancy neutral. In order words, these personnel have not been engaged against clear vacancies. Also, the scheme is entirely different in form in that the ‘Rehbars’, under this scheme are to be necessarily drawn from the village where the school is located. In fact, if anything, the ‘R-e-T Scheme’ is more community based where the objective is to involve local eligible stakeholders in the furtherance of the educational objectives at the primary level in a given geography. On the other hand, the engagement of R-e-Zs’ in one go are not comparable with those of the ‘R-e-Ts’ in whose case, as may be known, the engagements follow a proper competitive selection process. He said at the time of their registration as ‘R-e-Zs’, these personnel had given undertakings to the effect that the act of registration as ”R-e-Zs’ would not entitle them to the benefit of regularization of their services.
The Minister said in order to address the concerns of’R-e-Zs’, the State Government, vide Government order No. 1353-GAD of 2006, dated 27-10-2006, constituted a cabinet-sub-committee, comprising Minister for Health and Medical Education and the then Minister for Agriculture, Horticulture and Rural Development Department. The Committee was asked to examine various alternatives to engage these R-e-Zs in gainful employment. The cabinet-sub-committee further constituted a committee under the chairmanship of the Principal Secretary, Agriculture with Commissioner Secretary, Law, Commissioner Secretary, General Administration Department and Commissioner Secretary, Rural Development as members and asked the Committee to engage itself with all the relevant issues. Even though the Committee had done substantial examination of all the relevant issue, it could not submit its report as, in the interim, Governor’s rule had intervened in the State.
Mir said in order to work out an appropriate framework a meeting was taken by the Chief Minister recently in which, apart from Finance Minister and myself, the MoS Agriculture and MoS Finance and the Chief Secretary and the Administrative Secretaries in charge of APD, Planning and Finance and the Principal Secretary to Chief Minister also participated. In the meeting, all relevant administrative and financial issues involved in the regularization of these personnel were discussed in detail.
Following comprehensive deliberations, the broad contours of the framework of regularization were crystallized. Consequently, he said the APD was asked to formulate a scheme based on the broad decisions crystallized in the meeting and place the same before the Planning and Finance Departments for their concurrence before sending the proposal to the Cabinet for approval. Accordingly, the APD formulated a regularization framework, which was later sent to the Planning and Development Department for its nod. The Planning and Development Department has reportedly posed the concurrence of the Planning and Finance Departments is received, the APD would proceed to place the matter before the Cabinet for approval.
Explaining the course of events on February 28, 2011, the Minister said on February 28, 2011 at 12 noon, some agriculture technocrats assembled in front of the Press Club, Jammu and thereafter, started marching towards the Civil Secretariat for’ gherao’ of the State Assembly. They were stopped by police at Dogra Chowk and advised not to move towards the Secretariat, but they reportedly became violent and forced the police to use a mild lathi-charge. However, to prevent any law and order problem, 318 agriculture technocrats were arrested U/S 107/151 Cr PC on the orders of the Executive Magistrate on duty. Subsequently, all these persons were released at 4 p.m the same day on the orders of the Executive Magistrate, he added.
Earlier, highlighting the issues of Agriculture Technocrats and other unemployed youth who are on constant dharna in Jammu and other places, Harshdev Singh said that previous as well as present governments have promised for their regularization. He regretted that instead of resolving their problems, the Government has used force on them while they were doing peaceful protests.
He has sought immediate action against police officers responsible for directing lathi-charge on the unemployed youth.
Balwant Singh Mankotia said that if the issue of unemployed youth, who are on constant dharna at Jammu, was not addressed there is apprehension of deteriorating law and order situation. He asked for resolving their problems sympathetically.