Govt ignoring state’s unemployed youth: Jogi

Raipur, November 23, 2012

Senior Congress MLA Ajit Jogi alleged that the government was ignoring state’s unemployed youth by not creating job opportunities for them.

“The appointment of assistant lecturers in government colleges through Public Service Commission (PSC) was last done in 1991. The BJP government released advertisement for new posts of assistant lecturers in 2009. So, for 18 years, the employed youth could not get job opportunity in colleges despite vacant posts,” he said.

He said his former Congress government in state provided relief to youth by staring contract appointment for teaching faculty in colleges. “We increased the age limit for contract appointment up to 51 years and to give benefit of such jobs to the locals we fixed the salary as Rs 8000 per month. About 1000-1500 youth got benefited through this system,” he added.

“Unfortunately, the existing government’s 2009 ad for assistant lecturers had no place for those who were teaching in colleges as contract staff for the past 18 years. The government rather adopted the rules framed for Shikshakarmis to select assistant lecturers,” he said.

“According to new rule the new age limit was 37 years. No priority was give to those who have cleared national eligibility test (NET) or state eligibility test (SLET). In fact, the government stopped conducting SLET to keep the local candidates at bay,” he alleged.

He cited the High Court (HC) verdict on plea of one Atul Kumar Sharma (Bilaspur) that said the government must direct PSC to fix age limit considering the interests of contract staff. “But the BJP government moved to Supreme Court against HC verdict. It did this to benefit the outsiders,” he said.

He said even the University Grant Commission (UGC) has not fixed any upper age limit for the lecturers. 

He said the government’s decision had rendered about 1500 contract staff unemployed.