Morung Express News
Dimapur | November 2
Every year, hundreds of Naga youths turn up for the recruitment rallies conducted by the military establishment. There is no demonstrable data in the public domain but it can be assumed that many get enlisted for service either in the Army or the Assam Rifles (AR).
Now, when it comes to the allotment of seats or vacancies, there is a distinction in policy followed by the Army and the AR. Generally, the vacancies advertised by the Army are open to all irrespective of social branding, in other words, there is no category-wise ‘reservation’ of seats.
The recruitment policy applied by the AR is quite akin to the one followed for employment into other government jobs— seats are reserved category-wise.
While this seems fair enough, there is discontent in Nagaland over the vacancies allotted to the ‘Scheduled Tribe’ category in the state by the Assam Rifles.
According to sources, the reservation policy applied by the AR in Nagaland is skewed in favour of ‘general’ category candidates. Every year, more than 50% of the seat allotment to the state is said to be reserved for general category candidates, while leaving only a small %age of seats for STs.
One source cited the number of vacancies allotted to Nagaland for the Assam Rifles Technical and Tradesmen Recruitment Rally 2021-22, the advertisement for which was published in September. October 25 was the last date for submission of application forms and the recruitment rally scheduled in December.
The source, an aspiring male candidate for one of the posts advertised, informed that for the 2021-22 rally, Nagaland was allotted 120 seats. “Out of this, 62 of the allotted seats have been reserved for General category candidates,” he said. The remaining 58 seats assigned to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backwards Castes (OBC) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) categories.
Broken down further, the seat allotted to ST candidates was 19, SC- 11, OBC- 20 and EWS- 8. As per the candidate, “It is not fair to allot only 15-16% of the total allotment (to Nagaland).”
He added, “Given the prevailing demographic of Nagaland, if not all the seats, 70-80% of the seats should be reserved for ST candidates.”
While stating that the AR recruitment board may be applying the policy as laid down by the Ministry of Home Affairs, he held that the allotment of seats category-wise deserves a policy reconsideration as far as Nagaland is concerned.
