Srinagar, Aug 1: The Community Information Centre (CIC) operators working in Rural Development Department (RDD) of J&K UT have appealed to the J&K Lieutenant Governor (LG) for his personal intervention to get their services regularized.
In a letter to J&K LG, the 172 CIC operators have stated that they have sent many applications through email for appointment with the J&K LG to submit their genuine and long pending demands.
“We have written an open letter to J&K LG and submit our demands through the medium of print and electronic media for your sympathetic and kind consideration on merits,” the letter reads.
The CIC operators are well qualified having MCA, M.Tech, M.Sc.IT, B.E and B.Tech Degrees and are technically very sound and efficient.
“We are handling efficiently all the online work of departmental portals viz E-gram-swaraj, SBM, PMAY, Peoples Plan Campaign (SabkiYojnaSabkaVikaas), GPDP, Mission Antyodaya, PFMS etc and other e-Governance related activities. Besides all other office assignments viz-a-viz elections, establishment, accounts, works etc. at Block/District/Directorate/Secretariat level,” the letter reads.
The CIC operators have been working on contractual basis since 2004 and are withdrawing a peanut amount of Rs 10,000 per month i.e (Rs 333 per day) on account of salary.
“It constrains us to live a miserable and stressful life. Our appointments have been made by open competition after proper advertisement in leading newspapers of J&K and calling applications from the eligible candidates in the year 2003-04,” the letter reads.
They said J&K government in 2014 passed a cabinet order to formulate a proposal for the regularizations of 172 CIC Operators in RDD J&K following which the government in 2016 through its cabinet decision created 172 Data Entry Operators for regularization of their services.
The letter reads that the department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs J&K has given their opinion in favour of CIC Operators and the Advocate General of J&K also given his opinion for regularization of CIC operators.
“After the file of the regularization was earlier submitted by the RDD, in 2017, at first, the GAD sought a legal opinion from the Department of Law. Once that was done, in the second instance, the GAD sought another legal opinion from the Advocate General of Jammu & Kashmir-which was submitted as well,” it read.
The letter reads that the RDD has been advised by the GAD to put the cases of the CIC Operators before the Establishment & Selection Committee of Jammu & Kashmir.
“The process will take years altogether and almost all the incumbents have crossed the age of 45 years and above; 172 posts of data entry operators were created by GAD in 2016 and also the cases were cleared by the Empowered Committee of J&K Govt. in 2017,” it reads.
The CIC operators have further appealed to the J&K LG for his personal intervention into the matter and issue necessary instructions for regularization of 172 CIC operators.
“It is further requested to order enhancement of salary of CIC operators with immediate effect as an interim relief. Hope the genuine demands of CIC operators will be addressed at an earliest,” the letter reads.