The Uttarakhand government seems to caught in a crossfire as strikes by pro-quota as well as anti-quota unions of the state government employees has paralysed various departments.
For the past few days, a section of the employees have been resorting to strike to seek implementation of the high court’s verdict striking down the provisions of caste-based promotions in government jobs.
Employees belonging to SCs/STs, on the other hand, are putting pressure on the government to continue its policy of promotions on the basis of castes, thus, forcing the government to come out with a middle path to smooth the ruffled feathers of both the sections of the employees.
The state Cabinet had, on Monday, took the decision of setting up a committee to prepare a report on caste-based promotions in government jobs.
The committee, to be headed by a former high court judge, Irshad Hussain, has been asked to submit its report in three-months time, Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna announced Monday evening in the wake of mounting pressure from various unions of the state government.
Bahuguna said the government has restarted the process of departmental promotion committee (DPC) meetings which had earlier been kept in abeyance. According to the chief minister, promotions would be made without reservation to SCs/STs. But employees who had retired in July-August this year would also be given notional promotions, he said.
Bahuguna said the Irshad Hussain committee would study issues related to backwardness, adequacy (or Inadequacy) of representation and maintenance of administrative efficiency as prescribed by the Supreme Court in the Nagraj case for providing reservation in promotion to SC/ST. He said that SC/ST employees, who would have got promotion had ‘reservation in promotion’ scheme had been there before, would be appointed on promotion posts by creating ex-cadre posts as an interim arrangement till the final decision was taken by the government after receiving the report.