I will lower edu criteria for Govt jobs: Omar

Rajouri, Nov 19: National Conference (NC), if voted to power, would lower the educational criteria for government jobs in Jammu and Kashmir to absorb unemployed youths, party president Omar Abdullah promised to people here. Taking up the increased unemployment problem as one of its top agendas to woo voters in the ongoing Assembly elections, Mr Abdullah here said the NC would favour lowering the educational criteria to absorb unemployed youths, particularly for the rural and unprivileged, in government services.

''Our party will also lower the qualification bar for appointment of constables in Police department and Class IV category to middle pass and not matric as imposed by the erstwhile PDP-Congress government,'' the NC president said while addressing a public rally at Thanamandi here in connection with November 23 Assembly election.

''NC will re-start the process of recruitment of youth in the police department by sending the Director General of Police to remote areas as was being done in the previous NC government,'' Mr Abdullah said.

Emphasising on empowering the common man, the NC leader said' ''If the common man is empowered and the process of governance is devolved to the grassroots level, the delivery mechanism is bound to become efficient and lead to effective governance.'' Mr Omar who was addressing a series of public meetings in Rajouri, said the model of regional autonomy as envisaged by the party will devolve power to the regional and sub-regional level thereby ensuring the participation of the people of all regions and sub-regions in the decision making process.

''This model will also address the aspirations of the people living in different parts of the state,'' he said. Taking a dig at the previous coalition government, the NC leader said six years of Congress-PDP rule in the state led to an administrative anarchy and chaos. ''In the name of development, the PDP-Congress government in the state has given the state unemployment, financial mismanagement, poverty, bad roads, dry taps, poor health care and crippled education system,'' he said.

''The coalition government, which came into power in 2002 by raising hollow slogans and making false promises did not addressed the problem of unemployment with the result that today there is restlessness among the youth,'' Mr Abdullah said.

Promising to take the youth of the state out of hopelessness and despair by redressing the unemployment problem, the NC leader said, ''the party will come out with a special package for employment of the youth and shall open new avenues for the young unemployed and ensure that in each household of the state there is at least one earning hand.''

UNI