Students’ orgs from east districts lament ‘job deprivation’

EMN Dimapur, July 10 Students’ organizations representing east districts of the state have claimed that they have been “deprived” of jobs in the state and tacitly attributed “backwardness” to having been ‘deprived’ from the benefits of a “job reservation”. The Konyak Students’ Union and United Sangtam Students’ Conference have shared the stated opinion in separate statements to the media. As a part of addressing the stated grievance, an organization, the Konyak Students’ Union (KSU) has asked all heads of departmental offices in Mon district to prepare what the union called “employment list”, with class and grading, of their respective department and to submit it to the organization on or before July 25.The union issued a press release on Thursday, July 9, expressing “full cooperation and support” to the Eastern Naga Students’ Federation’s (ENSF) demand to the state’s government to provide “justification” for what the union so-termed “deprival of job reservation policy in the state since 1977”. “Taking a serious note upon the degrading issues, the Konyak Students Union (KSU) directs all HODs within Mon district to prepare the employment list (Class & Grade wise) of the respective department and to submit it to the Office of the Konyak Students Union on or before 25th of July 2015”, the union said. As stated in the ENSF’s representation to the government, the union said it ‘fully endorsed the grievances and the plight of 38 years since the introduction of the job reservation policy in the state’. The Konyak Naga “were never benefited and instead it had been deprived and manipulated,” the union claimed. The press release said that the Konyak population was “one of the biggest tribe and the most populace tribe in the state” but the “percentage of representation in the government employment sector is very much negligible as compared to any Naga tribes of Nagaland”. The union went on to claim further that the “delay in the advent of education and Christianity in the region had compelled the tribe (Konyak) to be backward educationally, economically and in terms of all rounds developmental in the region”. According to the Konyak students, there were “numerous anomalies and irregularities within Mon district as per the report received from the 10 area students’ union under KSU”. The “irregularities” which the union listed were (verbatim): • “Many posts which were appointed against the existing vacancy under Mon district are being transferred out from the region without reliever causing shortages of staffs/manpower or even vacancy position. • Cases such as force retirement and force transfer with post or without reliever while on the verge of retirement had deprived the people from actual vacancies. • Many officers & staffs seldom remain at station”. In the words of the union, the “plight of the Konyaks can be best understood while considering its waste geographical areas with a population of 2.5 lakhs”. 38 years of the job reservation policy, the union lamented, have never benefitted the Konyak Naga in any way, the union asserted. The union said that the “deplorable status of employment within Konyak society” comprise “a handful or countable class I & II gazetted officers in the state…only some few hundred are being recruited in grade-3 posts…only 5-10 individual Konyak had been benefited under 25% job reservation at the state level offices like directorate & secretariat...nullifying 100% job reservation for grade-IV at the district level offices for the local, the state government had even manipulated it by appointing numerous non local directly from the higher level at Kohima and Dimapur”. The KSU has convened a meeting of its executive council on July 27 in Mon town. All the members of the council are requested to attend. USSC The United Sangtam Students’ Conference (USSC), another students’ group form the east of the state, expressed support to the ENSF. The organization said in a press release on Friday that “successive state governments of Nagaland has failed eastern populace through paper formalities and notifications in job reservation policy in name, and ventured out its manipulation for last 38 years and there by deprived the rights of the eastern people despite the government….” According to the group, the “high office of state directorates and secretariat are the evident of deprivation, where ratio of eastern people serving in these offices are below 25% job reservation policy…” In district level as well, the organization stated, “many appointed government employees are made through backdoor and they are earning without their presence at the posting place and the local/indigenous educated despite the 25% job reservation policy could not avail the opportunity and deprived upon?” Grade-IV post “which is 100% reserved for local inhabitant indigenous people are also manipulated by appointing other inhabited populace and non locals,” the USSC stated. The organization also reiterated what it stated was a “ban” on “transfer with post/attachment without reliever…within Sangtam jurisdiction”. This “order”, as the USSC called it, “has been enforced due to random transfer/attachment by the departmental heads taking undue advantages to its people and also directs all the DDO’s not to issue any release order”. Violation of this “notification the conference will not compromise in any manner and concern authority will be held responsible,” the press release added.