India Intolerant?

A lot of flavor of intolerance has been in the air of India from last couple of years.  A fait accompli or a perception incubated by repetitive usage of the term. Intolerance, as the terminology indicates, is the feeling which is deprived of tolerance for any person or a group of persons complemented with a feeling of antipathy towards the same. Is the present India intolerant? Is there not any intolerance anywhere else? If there is any phenomenon of intolerance, then it came into existence with the development of human brain and flourished perpetually. Life sprout out with a follow up principle of survival of fittest triggering the cascade of the intolerance, intolerance against anything harming one’s interest or not complying with one's ideology. Tolerance or intolerance is one of the human psychological attributes malleable enough to be influenced by the patterns of socialization, one’s instinctive behavior, extent of cognizance and level of maturity. Every living being is intolerant against something. A microbe shows intolerance intra-specific prioritizing its needs. Intolerance can be said to have flourished spatially and temporally infinite. Vedic period, one of the enlightened period of Indian history, furcated the society into four Varna leaving the rest as untouchables. The untouchables were so insulated by the elites or the twice-borns that mere their glimpses tainted the latter and was customary for untouchables  to beat the drums before entering the main dwelling areas.  Intolerance started incubating, curse of which haunting the societies hitherto. After the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632,  a dispute over succession to Muhammad as a caliph of the Islamic community spread across various parts of the world, which led to the Battle of Jamal and Battle of Siffin. The dispute intensified manifold after the Battle of Karbala, in which Hussein Ibn Ali and his household were killed by the ruling Umayyad Caliph Yazid I, and the clamour for revenge divided the early Islamic community.

Download MERA VETAN - JK Employees Salary Tracker Mobile App

Free Download MERA VETAN - JK Employees Salary Tracker Mobile App

JKPAYSYS, a web portal for online payment system, was made mandatory w.e.f April 15, 2020 for withdrawal of Jammu & Kashmir Government Employees' salaries. The initiative aims to ease the business and make the transactions smooth and hassle-free. 

In the furtherance of making the system more user-friendly, 

JK Employees Salary Tracker Mobile App - ' MERA VETAN' is now launched by Lieutenant Governor (LG), Girish Chandra Murmu on June 3, 2020.

This application is aimed to provide salary related information to the employees.

The twin web-based systems tend to enhance transparency, accountability and accuracy in government transactions. 

Withdraw discriminatory SRO-202

Daily Excelsior OP-Ed 15 February 2020

After the transformation of Jammu Kashmir from State into Union Territory, a slew of promises made by Union Government to the youth of Jammu and Kashmir and rendered them believe that a dawn would indeed be coming to rejuvenate their lives.
The employees recruited under unjust J&K State policy of SRO 202 of 30.06.2015 have huge expectations from this transformation. Union Government announced that all the JK UT employees would get all the allowances as recommended by 7th Pay Commission like Travelling Allowances, Child Education Allowances, Hostel Allowance, LTC etc. However, there was no mentioning of SRO 202 inflicted employees who were not even getting the allowances the other employees of erstwhile state were getting paid like DA, HRA, CCA, no NPS contributions, no annual increments etc.
The SRO-202 was issued by the General Administration Department with effect from June 30, 2015 running under the Jammu and Kashmir Special Recruitment Rules, 2015. SRO 202 has some inhibitory provisions for employees especially in the form of Rule 8 and Rule 9. Rule 8, which deals with nature of appointment, states: “A person appointed under these Rules shall be initially on probation for a period of five years and after completion of five years he or she shall be declared permanent subject to passing of such tests or successfully undergoing such training provided under the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1956”. This Rule further reads: “The appointee shall have to necessarily work for a period of five years on the post against which he has been appointed and such appointee shall not be eligible for transfer for whatsoever reason during the temporary service of five years”. Rule 9 states: During the period of first five years, the appointee shall be entitled to the minimum scale of the pay along with the grade pay applicable to the post against which he is appointed. “Every appointee after completion of five years period on probation shall be entitled to fixation of pay in the time scale of pay applicable to the post against which he is appointed”. Moreover, in Rule 7 of SRO 202, it is stated that the recruitment to any post via this new scheme would be completed on fast track basis (within 3 months) but most of the recruitment processes took upto 3 years.
The long probation of five years, as scripted in SRO 202, is per se a violation of JK CSR Rules, 1956 which states that the probation of newly recruited employees would be of two years. The culture, of granting the first annual increment from sixth year, it seeks to establish would have long lasting detrimental effect on the aggrieved employees. The Dearness Allowance (DA) paid to government employees is inflation-indexed. How can the SRO 202 employees believed to be immune against inflation? Most of the recruited employees have been posted in hard zones and there is no provision of their transfers for five years. Inspite of rewarding them with incentives to serve in the less-served regions, they are actually being deprived of their due rights.
It is pertinent to mention here that all the posts notified for recruitment after 30.06.2015 have not been put under SRO 202. For instance, recruitment for KAS 2016 (Jammu Kashmir Combined Competitive Entrance Examination 2016) vide Notification No. PSC/EXM/2016/52 dated : 18.06.2016, Assistant Professors for different subjects in Higher Education Department vide Notification No.10-PSC (DR-P) of 2017 dated 27.10.2017, KAS 2018 (Jammu Kashmir Combined Competitive Entrance Examination 2018) vide notification no. PSC/Exam/2018/38 dated: 25.05.2018 etc were not combined with SRO 202. Such exclusions and inclusion of rest of posts, including some of the gazetted posts like 10+2 Lecturers, Medical Officers, Veterinary Surgeons etc, under the ambit of SRO 202 are totally illogical, discriminatory and flawed illustrations of retarded policy making. Such policies by the state would lead to disheartened brigade of employees with lesser efficacy, choleric temperament, higher tendency of drifting towards unethical ways of meeting their ends.
SRO 202 was brought into effect by erstwhile State Government citing the rationale of financial constraints. Annual budget of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir for upcoming Financial Year of 2020-21 will be approved by the Parliament in its budget session and it is estimated that this will be for the first time that budget of Jammu and Kashmir will surpass Rs one lakh crore. During 2019-20 financial year, Jammu and Kashmir’s budget was to the tune of Rs 88,911 crore. With such a hike in Budget allocation for a region of erstwhile state excluding Ladakh, the rationale behind introducing SRO 202 cease to have its validity in new UT set up.
Putting in nutshell, SRO 202 needs to be discontinued so that the employees get their rightful dues. The recommendations of Law Commission once again rekindled the hopes of the aggrieved employees. These recommendations must be implemented in letter and spirit as early as possible. In addition, periodical annual increments should be granted notionally from the date of first appointment. Moreover, if there is still any financial implications involved, the differential approach of keeping some posts like Assistant Professors, KAS etc out of SRO202 needs to be revisited and putting in place across all posts a uniform probation period of two years entitled to the minimum scale of the pay along with the grade pay.

Pay Full Salary to 10+2 Lecturers

Daily Excelsior Readers Write 28/04/2018

On 10th October 2017, the Cabinet discussed the appointments at gazetted level mode in the School Education/Higher Education Departments in terms of SRO 202 of 2015 dated 30.06.2015 read with Government Order No.1377-GAD of 2015  dated 15.10. 2015 and decided that full salary along with allowances shall be paid to these appointees in relaxation of rule 9 and 10 of the aforesaid SRO with immediate effect. However, it has been six months since this Cabinet decision but the formal order regarding the same has not been issued hitherto and new appointees are drawing  mere the basic salary.
Most of the newly recruited lecturers have been posted in  hard zones , far flung regions of the State which lack the basic amenities like proper water supply, power supply, toilets etc. The expenses tend to exceed the earnings. It’s highly unfair to keep them underpaid when all the other gazetted officials enjoy  full perks of a gazetted State Government job. Moreover, a teacher with only secondary level qualification not recruited under SRO 202 is drawing 1.5 times the salary of gazetted lecturers.  It’s a violation of Article 23(2) Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work”.

CPGRAMS - A Revolution in Grievances Redressal Mechanism

Government of India has been making enormous efforts to make the governance citizen-centric and the service delivery to its citizen hassle-free and cost-effective. Digital India is the cornerstone of E-governance which is surely on the right path to revolutionize the bureaucratic system by bringing transparency, accountability, responsibility and thus, emancipating the citizen from stagnation of ill-governance.  In this direction, GoI has launched many services and products (apps and soft wares) online. I recently had a taste of Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) and it's working efficiency. 

CPGRAMS, as defined on its website, is the platform based on web technology which primarily aims to enable submission of grievances by the aggrieved citizens from anywhere and anytime (24x7) basis to Ministries/Departments/Organisations who scrutinize and take action for speedy and favorable redress of these grievances. Tracking grievances is also facilitated on this portal through the system generated unique registration number.


I lodged a complaint regarding the redundant mode of filling CSIR NET-JRF application forms. My complaint read as:

As mentioned in Advertisement Notification No.10-2(5)/2017(ii) - E.U.II, item no. 5.4. "Candidates applying for the Test may deposit their Examination fee, after verifying their eligibility, in any branch of the Indian Bank throughout the country by paying the requisite fee in cash through bank challan OR RTGS/NEFT through any bank (Bank account details are required to be filled in the Indian Bank challan form to be downloaded from online application system", the mode of payment for CSIR-NET JRF/LS application form via offline(challan) and online(NEFT) means are not efficient and time consuming processes. Payment through offline mode is also only through a bank (INDIAN BANK) which don't have suffice penetration in various states. Like, in Jammu Kashmir, it has only four branches i.e. only two districts and long queues can be visible outside bank branch counters. Recently, many candidates faced a cumbersome situation when Indian bank's servers were down for a day at Gandhi Nagar branch, Jammu. Although NEFT facility is available but it doesn't provide the ease and pace that other modes like debit/credit card, net banking, UPI, PSB e-wallets etc. provide. Moreover, the whole process is orthodox and redundant viz. Challan deposition, filing forms and then sending the application forms and challan through post. In the era where digitization (paperless and cashless) has been lauded as the epitome of governance with our PM's flagship idea of Digital India, how much it is justified to linger on such methodology of form submission and let the students waste their productive times in such unproductive processes. It should be made wholly online whether it is payment mode via all the modes possible and discontinuing the tradition of sending the application forms through post. It doesn't seem unfeasible as most of the examination conducting agencies are providing simplified and convenient routes of application form submission to students and further when Rs 1000 is charged as fee. Thanks.

Contacting on phone numbers that were provided to me in this exercise, I was assured that the process would be streamlined. To my wonder, CSIR notified it's next notification  viz. Advertisement No.10-2(5)/2018(i) - E.U.II with all the changes I made concern of. A number of such cases disposed off by CPGRAMS makes it one of the best tool in the direction of a citizen-centric governance.
"An Inclusive Governance comes into being when a representative form of Government lends the platform and the citizen is receptive enough to utilize the same for the overall good of the society."



Procedure for citizens to lodge grievance:
(www.cbec.gov.in/htdocs-cbec/cpgrams-brief.pdf)

1. Grievances can be lodged online by log-in to www.pgportal.gov.in (PG portal) with provision for selecting password and giving email ID to receive electronic acknowledgement. The citizen could also lodge grievance using – link on CBEC website www.cbec.gov.in . The specifics in the grievance may be provided like the right jurisdictional office (if known), details of specific service not meeting Citizen Charter norms and remedy requested with immediate action if any. Citizen may provide additional details as sought by department for effective grievance redress.
2. The system shall generate a ‘Unique Registration number’ for each grievance. This number could be used to check periodic progress and send reminders.
3. On grievance redress, reply is received and can be viewed through the PG portal.
4. Grievances can also be sent by post or hand to Public Grievance Officers (PGO) at field level on a plain paper giving above specific details for redress. PGO shall issue a unique number to complainant for follow up. The grievances could be followed up with PGO for progress or redress quoting the unique number. Details of the PGO are available at the CBEC web-site or could be got by calling the jurisdictional Chief Commissioner/ Commissioner office.