Muhammad Suhail
Srinagar, Oct 28 (KNS); Jammu and Kashmir Agriculture Minister Javid Ahmad Dar on Wednesday said the government is working to address the demands of protesting agriculture graduates, maintained that changes to recruitment rules in the department could not be made overnight.
Speaking to news agency Kashmir News Service (KNS) minister Javid Ahmad Dar said a senior officer had been deputed to hold talks with the protesters, who have been demonstrating for nearly a month, demanding changes to recruitment rules in the Agriculture Production Department (APD).
“Their demand is that the recruitment rules in the Agriculture Department should be changed, whether at the JEO or AEO level. There are certain provisions in the recruitment rules that they feel are against their interests,” the minister said.
He said the government is discussing the demands with its colleagues and making efforts to streamline the recruitment framework.
“This is not something that can be fixed overnight. Thousands of people work in our department, and they have their own compulsions.
Click Here To Follow Our WhatsApp ChannelThe department has to function,” minister Dar said.
The minister said the government had been working for the past four months to reform the Agriculture Department, which, he said, had faced stagnation, litigation and issues related to recruitment rules.
“We have been trying to reform the Agriculture Department. There was a lot of stagnation and litigation, and several issues concerning recruitment rules,” he said, adding that steps had been taken to consolidate certain posts.
Minister Dar appealed to the protesting graduates to call off their strike, saying efforts had been made to engage with them and explain the issues involved.
The protest by unemployed agriculture graduates has continued over recruitment policies that they allege have restricted employment opportunities in the department for nearly two decades.
The protesters are demanding the scrapping of SRO-433 of 2004 and SRO-442 of 2017, claiming that the provisions have stalled direct recruitment to entry-level gazetted and non-gazetted technical posts in the Agriculture Production Department. (KNS)