Morung Express News
Dimapur | June 3
Following the submission of a 30 day ultimatum to the Tourism Department on May 25 to cancel all backdoor appointments, the Nagaland Public Rights Awareness and Action Forum (NPRAAF) on Friday staged a sit-in dharna at the premises of Tourism Office, Dimapur (Tourist Lodge) demanding fulfilment of their demands.
Addressing a press conference today, NPRAAF General Secretary, Hito Swu said that the Forum was not against any individual but against corrupt practices of appointment, thereby denying employment opportunities to the educated unemployed youth. He said that the uncompromising stance of the NPRAAF against the Tourism Department was concerning alleged anomalies in the appointments and the alleged massive misuse of funds in infrastructure.
“NPRAAF strives to be the voice of the deprived people who are silently suffering without anybody to fight for them,” Hito said.
NPRAAF President, Wedieu Kronu said that there was an excess of 5 Tourist Officers (TOs) in the Department against the sanctioned posts of 12 TOs. She said that the excess officers were a result of premature promotions of three employees and other backdoor appointments, and demanded cancellation of the promotion orders of the three TOs.
“Even though there are excess TOs, Kiphire still does not have a TO so one of our demands is to post a TO there,” she said.
The NPRAAF also demanded the cancellation of the post of one TO and its resultant vacancy be declared open for competition.
Further, the NPRAAF demanded the cancellation of absorption service of one Class – I Gazetted officer whose service was absorbed along with post. It said that the appointment of the Class – I officer was in contravention to the Department’s Service Rule – 5 (i) which states that Class – I posts would be filled by “promotion of members of the lower grade.”
The NPRAAF also demanded cancellation of all other absorption services and the resultant vacancies be made open for competition adding, “such absorption policy takes away the chance of the educated youth to be employed.” After the expiry of the 30 days ultimatum on June 25, the NPRAAF said it would have no option but to resort to its planned phase wise democratic protests to bring the issue to a logical conclusion.
“Any situation arising out of such democratic protests would be the sole look out and responsibility of the Department of Tourism since by that time, the Department would have got enough time to settle the issue,” NPRAAF added.
