While latest Economic Survey of Jammu and Kashmir says Khadi and Village Board’s (KVIB) employment generation is showing downward slide from 2014, sales are declining and targets not met, the obscure Board has generated controversy in the State for recruiting chief minister Mehbooba Mufti’s nephew and other candidates in top position in the board.
The KVIB has been given the charge of planning, promotion, organisation and implementation of programmes for the development of Khadi and other village industries in the rural areas.
The KVIB is not facing brickbats for not doing much to promote Khadi but it is facing criticism for its recent recruitment. So much so, even the 2010 IAS topper and Managing Director of State Power Development Corporation (SPDC), Shah Faesal, demanded registration of FIR, if the allegations of rigging in the selection list were true.
“If it’s true that the merit list has been rigged then instead of an inquiry there should be an FIR. High time that we took those people to task who push our educated youngsters to the wall and kill their confidence,” Faesal wrote on his Facebook page.
The KVIB had advertised various posts in October 2016 and conducted the interviews in January. For the post of Executive Officer, the KVIB had fixed Masters in Business Administration as a minimum qualification. As the list was announced on February 20, recruitment of 37-year-old Syed Aroot Madni, Mehbooba’s nephew at the post and other candidates in related posts evoked criticism.
Opposition NC says Mehbooba's nephew and other people figuring in the final list issued by the KVIB are either children of close associates of PDP leaders or have direct patronage from the powers that be.
The dropped candidates allege that the interview panel played foul to accommodate the Chief Minister’s nephew and others. "Let them share how many marks the candidates secure in the written and in the interview. That will clear the air," says a dropped candidate. They say 15 to 18 candidates were shortlisted for an interview to fill a single post, which is against the set norm of 3:1 or 5:1. They say shortlisting so many candidates for an interview was done to manipulate the selection process. The candidates said 60 marks were kept for the test while as 30 for an interview and ten marks for an experience. This, the candidates say, is against the norms set by the recruitment agencies of the state like Jammu Kashmir Public Service Commission (PSC), which keeps 80 marks for written and 20 for an interview to fill vacancies.
Rashid Ahmad Qadri, Secretary Khadi and Village Board, defends the selection. "We are a statutory body. We have own recruitment rules. We don’t refer posts to recruitment boards like PSC," he said.
"The written test and the interview were conducted in an impartial manner," he claims. He says in the selection process the special secretary law had hired services of a private agency which conducts such exams. He said two members of the Khadi and Village Board, the director industries department and the special secretary law conducted the interview. “There is nothing wrong with the whole process. The selected candidates will join the department”, he says. He says he has no information that the papers were leaked during the examination process.
The opposition National Conference asked Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to explain how the son of PDP Vice President and her uncle figured in the list of selected executive officers for the J&K Khadi and Village Board.
“The Government has taken the patience of unemployed youth for granted and should not try to portray this brazen nepotism as a miraculous coincidence”, NC state spokesperson Junaid Azim Mattu says.
“The Chief Minister is directly culpable for this open loot and plunder she has authorized in the State. The institutions of the State have been ravaged by the PDP and corruption has been institutionalized by the Chief Minister and her family members”, the NC spokesperson said.
The NC demanded an immediate independent probe into the list issued by the KVIB. "This was a cruel joke with the youth of the State who are reeling under unprecedented unemployment and hopelessness while children of PDP leaders are being adjusted in Government departments and boards through manipulation and open corruption," the party said.
