Students allege that according to the notification, Authorities consider only diploma holders eligible, whereas professional degree holders are being deprived from the eligibility which is mere injustice
Students demanded withdrawal of the posts till the eligibility is “rectified as per the justified eligibility criteria”
Chaotic scenes were witnessed at Shalimar campus of SKUAST-Kashmir after horticulture students protest against the university authorities for allegedly preferring diploma holders over professional degree holders for recruitments.
The protesting students blocked the entry and exit gates of the Shalimar campus which led to the chaotic situation at the varsity.
They said that they will end their protest only after an assurance from the university administration and the government that their grievance will be addressed.
With regard to their reservations over the recruitment rules, the protesting students accused the government of ruining their career saying that one-year diploma holders (BHT) had been kept eligible for Horticulture Technician-1V posts whereas professional degree holders (B. Sc. Horticulture graduates) were ironically deprived from the eligibility.
They said that in the in the recently advertised posts of Canning Instructor, the JKSSB had set Degree/Diploma in Food Processing or Fruit Preservation as eligibility criteria for the post, however in case of Horticulture Technician-IV, Diploma holders had been exclusively made eligible to apply.
“Such a blunder in eligibility criteria by the higher-ups in the administration has left the unemployed horticulture professionals in a state of despair,” a protesting student alleged.
The aggrieved students demanded withdrawal of the said posts till the eligibility is “rectified as per the justified eligibility criteria”.
They demanded the related amendment in the eligibility criteria be brought about on priority basis as they have been waiting for the vacancies for more than a decade.
The protesting Horticulture graduates further complained that there had been no progress in the 2018 Rehbar-e-Baghbani scheme proposal by the department for engaging professionals they said had added to their miseries.
The Vice Chancellor SKUAST-Kashmir Prof Mushtaq Ahmad said the job of university was to provide degrees and produce Human Resource for serving in various government departments.
“Our job is not to provide employment, the Government has to frame a policy for them. We provide our students with a degree to make them employable,” he said.
The vice chancellor further said they have written to the government a number of times about the matter. “But it takes time to finalise policy decisions in government. Students should act patiently and understand that university cannot frame job policy for government departments,” he said.