Expediting transparent recruitment process sans legal wrangling: CM

Jammu, Mar 31: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday stated that taking cue from previous experiences of recruitment process getting stuck in legal wrangling, his government was trying to adopt a balanced approach to ensure expediency with transparency.

He reiterated that the process to fill at least 25,000 vacancies in the current year was already initiated.

“The question flagged in supplementaries raised by the MLA was discussed in detail during this session in reply to the Lieutenant Governor’s address, after the budget during discussions on demands for grants also. As far as he has talked about transparency and time bound (recruitment), we all want that it should be done in a time-bound and transparent manner,” CM Omar pointed out while responding to the supplementary raised by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) MLA Waheed-Ur-Rehman Para during Question Hour in J&K Legislative Assembly.

Para, while sharing concern over a large number of vacancies in the government departments, had asked about any plan for a time bound recruitment process.

Responding to Para’s concern, the Chief Minister remarked, “However, timebound (recruitment) does not mean that we demonstrate such an expediency (in recruitment) that the matter lands in the court and gets stuck there. Earlier also we have seen it many times that recruitment lists were framed. However, while they were released, the matter reached the court and the entire process stopped there only. Legal process, in many cases, took so long that many of our youth got overaged and they could not get those jobs.”

Hence, the government’s effort would be to balance all these aspects; follow proper procedure besides maintaining transparency and expediting the process also, CM Omar said.

“As earlier I’ve said in the House during this session only that our endeavour is to fill at least 25,000 vacancies this year, for which the process has already started,” he shared.

Earlier he informed the House that as many as 48,958 non-gazetted and 10,217 gazetted posts- across both direct recruitment and promotion quotas were lying vacant in 38 government departments.

He stated that under the direct recruitment quota, 24,507 non-gazetted and 3,808 gazetted posts were vacant, while under the promotion quota, 24,451 non-gazetted and 6,409 gazetted posts remained unfilled across these departments. The Chief Minister further informed that, at the district level, a total of 16,812 non-gazetted and 2,798 gazetted posts were vacant across all 20 districts of Jammu and Kashmir.

He added that during the previous year (2025), 959 gazetted vacancies were referred to the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission, while 6,340 non-gazetted posts were referred to the Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection Board for recruitment.

In a reply to a separate question of Congress MLA Nizam0ud-Din Bhat related to cadre review, the Chief Minister informed the House that till date, no cadre review for the Jammu and Kashmir Accounts (Gazetted) Service was conducted.

“However, vide Government Order No 276 of 2024 dated August 22, 2024, a Committee comprising senior officers was constituted to undertake a comprehensive review of the said service. The proposal is currently under examination in the General Administration Department,” he said.

CM Omar stated that there was no career progression Scheme for the Jammu and Kashmir Accounts (Gazetted) Service. However, the Government vide G O No 1339 JKGAD dated July 9, 2024 constituted a sub committee to examine the issue related to the Assured Career Progression (ACP) of various services, including J&K Accounts (Gazetted) Service, he added.

“The proposal has been placed before the committee for examination,” the Chief Minister replied.

Bhat suggested that there should be no further delays and a harmonious policy should be put in place for expeditious disposal of cases and preventing further piling up of liabilities.