Tuensang, May 10 (MExN): The Eastern Naga Students’ Federation, on May 10, submitted a ‘three-point measure’ to the State Government to ensure implementation of ‘One Person One Reservation’ policy for seven tribes of Eastern Nagaland in the job reservation in the government sector.
Currently, a total of 25% of the vacancy in the Nagaland Public Service Commission, Nagaland Staff Selection Board and any other recruitment process under the State Government are reserved for ‘backward tribes’ (BT) of Eastern Nagaland.
In a representation to the Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, the ENSF called for limiting aspirants from availing more than one post from 25% job reservation under NPSC through an official notification from the concerned Department as the first measure.
Likewise, the second measure demanded similar condition for jobs under the NSSB.
The third measure also called for similar notification for job reservation under District Level Recruitment Board (DLRB) and in any other recruitment process followed by any Departmental Recruitment Board (DRB)/Corporation/Board/CSS vacancy etc where the vacancy post are advertised to be filled through an official notification from the concerned Department.
For instance, aspirants availing a quota in NPSC cannot avail another quota in the same NPSC examination; however, they can avail in NSSB or other, the Federation elaborated.
Accordingly, the ENSF requested the Chief Minister to consider its matter as “genuinely prayed for” and stated that such a consideration would not only lighten the burden of the State Government over the job reservation issue but help hasten the Eastern Nagas realise its “long-held aspiration viz-a-viz to keep at par with the rest of other Naga tribes across the state.”
Giving a background and justification to its demand, the ENSF representation appended by its president Chingmak Chang and assistant general secretary Kaibo Konyak, highlighted that even after more than 45 years of the implementation BT reservation policy and attempts by successive government to bridge the gap in the sphere of employment, disparities remain.
Citing a RTI reply in 2019, the ENSF pointed out that even after 45 years of the implementation BT quota, the employment rate of Eastern Nagas in public sector was only 13% even.
This truly needs to be corrected at the earliest possible time, it said.
While acknowledging and appreciating the State Government’s for implementing the BT Job Reservation Policy in 1977, the Federation said that it had discovered another malady behind the stagnant employment rate of Eastern Nagas.
After marathon quest for the reason behind it, we discovered that the bane of the state of stagnancy of employment rate of Eastern Nagaland is a single person benefitting/enjoying more than one BT quota, it informed.
According to the ENSF, the ‘malady’ was aspirants targeting for higher post once they crack an exam under lower rank.
‘And as and when s/he secures the desired post as targeted, s/he resigns from the previous post,’ it highlighted.
“It is crystal clear that once a person resigns from the post which he secured from BT quota, the post so resigned is no more treated as BT quota and is advertised as fresh vacancy in the ensuing recruitment. Consequently, that particular tribe is at loss of one BT quota,” the Federation maintained.
It further claimed that such practices have been doing the round since day one of the implementation of 25% job reservation and many posts have been lost in the process over the years.
For instance, it informed that there was a loss of 44 posts within the span of ten years in between 2009-2019 as per the RTI reply of 2019 and wondered what would the extent be of the losses if an ‘RTI is filed from 1977 to till date.
In this connection, the ENSF asserted that if the government of the day “does not correct the existing woe, the intent/objective behind implementing 25% job reservation will be a total failure.”
Against this backdrop, it further informed that Federation and its seven federating units had unanimously adopted a resolution on March 4, 2022 for ‘One Person One Reservation’ during its 21st Federal Assembly at ITC DAN, Noklak.
Accordingly, it impressed upon the State Government a quick implementation of the same for Eastern Nagas and submitted the three-point measure to “tackle with the matter at hand.”
