UT youth take to Twitter, seek rollback of SRO-202

JAMMU: Amidst nation-wide lockdown imposed to check the spread of Coronavirus, it seems that social media has become a new platform for the youth of Jammu and Kashmir to press the government for meeting their demands, as they launched an aggressive online campaign demanding rollback of contentious SRO-202 on Sunday.
The SRO-202 is a statutory order which was passed in June 2015 by then Governor N N Vohra, governing new state government recruits which saw any new recruit on probation for a period of 5 years, before his or her services, were regularised.
With the lockdown restricting people to come on streets, the scores of youth took to social media platform Twitter to share their views and demanded rollback of SRO-202.
Thousands of tweets regarding the rollback of SRO202 made the hashtag #SRO202 trending throughout the day.
“SRO 202 discriminates even among various services i.e. Doctors and only lecturers have been covered under gazetted services in UT. Do these professions and others do not contribute to society. Policies like this is a result of flawed policymaking and retarded mentality,” reads a tweet of dedicated account to SRO 202 victims.
It is pertinent to mention here that after facing criticism and wide-spread resentment for over half a decade, the government on February 2 this year constituted panel to review the SRO-202.
The panel was mandated to examine its implications on the job structure in Government as well as financial implications and to suggest a comprehensive approach.
However, due to the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic, the panel has failed to submit its report.
Under the SRO-202, the recruit is on probation for a period of 5 years, and is entitled to the minimum of scale pay along with the grade pay applicable to the post against which he is appointed.
It is only after completion of five years’ probation period, that the employee’s service is deemed permanent and he or she becomes entitled to fixation of pay in the time-scale of pay applicable to the post against which he is appointed.
Benefits like annual increments, Dearness Allowance, House Rent Allowance and City Compensatory Allowance are also not available to employees recruited under SRO-202 for first five years.
This is second such campaign launched by the launched in past 2-3 days.
Earlier, the youth have launched a campaign to lodge a protest against the domiciles rules in which government had reserved the class-IV jobs for J&K domiciles. The MHA had amended the domicile law within 2 days and reserved all the posts for J&K domiciles.

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