J&K Pollution Control Board ‘Ignores’ genuine aspirants to ‘Adjust’ former minister’s kin

A grave instance of “murder of merit” due to alleged political connections has come to the fore in the J&K Pollution Control Board.

The PCB recently employed the son-in-law of a former minister as Assistant Information Officer, ignoring the requisite qualification for the post — a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism. The appointee is an arts graduate.

Documents, which are in possession of Kashmir Post, reveal that while conferring the benefit on a junior candidate, Tanveer Ahmad Dar, who is son-in-law of former state Education Minister, the Board brazenly declined confirmation to two of its incharge Information Officers with postgraduate degrees in Mass Communication and Journalism.

The two have been denied confirmation on the posts on the pretext of a minor issue despite serving the department for 20 years as permanent employees and while working on the posts for the past eight years. While the confirmation case of the two incharge Information Officers was put on hold, the PCB appointed Dar as the AIO in December 2017 despite him not having the required qualification for the post.

“The politician’s relative was supposed to be regularised on some other post according to his qualification as per the draft service rules, but was brazenly appointed on the AIO post despite not having the qualification for the post,” an official said.

When the Board issued an order to the political appointee, the two incharge Information Officers had protested.

“That time the two IOs were told their confirmation proposal for the post had been sent to the government and the confirmation would be done soon. But now the Board is brazenly denying them the confirmation despite the government approval and their qualification for the post. In case of the political appointee, no government approval was sought nor were the rules followed,” the aggrieved official alleged. Board chairman Siddharth Kumar, however, sought to play down the issue. “Nothing (wrong) has been done,” he said. However, member secretary of the Board BM Sharma said the case of the two aggrieved officials would be taken up.

AIO Dar said he had nothing to say over the matter. “Notwithstanding the denial of wrongdoing by the authorities, the glaring fact is that at present, the PCB has an arts graduate as AIO instead of the two Mass Communication degree-holders,” an official said.

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