Imphal, June 25: The All Tribal Students Union of Manipur (ATSUM) has alleged that the Manipur Legislative Assembly Secretariat, the highest house for making laws of the land has turned into a place of shelter for wrong doers.
According to ATSUM’s publicity secretary Micah Kamei, the second phase of ATSUM’s ROTO (Reckoning of the Other) was lifted in the evening of November 25 last year. But among other demands, the crux is the reservation of ST quotas and filling up all backlog posts of different grades in all the departments by a special recruitment drive.
“Some departments are intentionally exploiting tribals in every walk of life. We are confused whether it is promotion and reservation of quota as per the latest 200 point roster. Information still couldn’t be procured after an application to ascertain the total number of STs, Generals and OBCs and the total number of backlog posts. It only reveals the dirty game being played by some officials.”
“As agreed upon to fill up all the backlog posts in every department by a special recruitment drive for ST, concerned authority of the Manipur Legislative Assembly Secretariat is expected to respond in every respects to poise an equilibrium in the reservation policy and its implementation but the department turned a deaf ear and issued a piecemeal recruitment notification on January 16 this year inviting applications from intending candidate for appointment to various categories of posts in contract with the assurance of filling backlog posts,” he said.
Stating that the students’ body sought information under Section 6 (1) of the RTI Act 2005 in January but an ATSUM team met the SPIO for the second time on 26th May, 2013 on the expiry of the grace period, he said they went to collect the information on June 4 this year but were surprised that they were prevented from entering the campus by security personnel on instructions from SPIO Joint Secretary K Maghajit Singh.
“We have been able to procure information from the MIS. As per the statistical figure shown in the table of the employees, 316 posts have been created with a total of only 19 STs against 65 as per model roster of 200 points by direct recruitment in the Manipur Legislative Assembly Secretariat. The department has committed another blunder by conducting closed door recruitment of grade-IV without issuing recruitment notification. As per the information, the result of this back door recruitment was back dated to November 21, 2013 and salaries for three months have been released,” he said.
In this regard, the students’ body has requested to cancel the recruitment process and call for a special drive for STs to fill the backlog posts. If government responds negatively we will launch the third ROTO agitation, Micah said.