Onlykashmir.in News Desk
The National Conference-led Jammu and Kashmir Government on Sunday mounted a strong and coordinated rebuttal against the People’s Democratic Party over allegations of backdoor appointments through the outsourcing route, asserting that the very policy under scrutiny was framed and implemented by the PDP itself during its alliance government with the BJP between 2015 and 2018.
Addressing a joint press conference in Srinagar, Chief Minister’s Advisor Nasir Aslam Wani, Health Minister Sakina Itoo and Agriculture Minister Javid Ahmad Dar united to dismiss the opposition’s charges as politically motivated and factually unsound. They challenged the PDP to identify a single illegal appointment made by the present administration.
Nasir Aslam Wani said the Omar Abdullah government remains committed to employment generation and has set a firm target of filling 40,000 posts through established recruiting agencies. He stressed that all recruitment under the present government has been conducted in phases, through official channels, and with full transparency. He further clarified that the outsourcing policy being questioned today was not introduced by the current administration but was an inherited arrangement put in place during the PDP-BJP rule, when administrative departments were stripped of their authority to make seasonal appointments and outsourcing was adopted as the standard mechanism.
“No new outsourcing policy has been introduced by this government,” Wani said, adding that the recruitments now being questioned had taken place before the 2024 Assembly elections and before the formation of the present government. He also drew a firm distinction between outsourcing, which is a temporary, need-based administrative arrangement, and regular government recruitment.
Going on the offensive, Wani alleged that it was during the PDP’s own tenure that backdoor appointments were made in institutions such as Jammu and Kashmir Bank and the Khadi and Village Industries sector. He further alleged that the PDP’s political decisions in 2019 had resulted in J&K losing its special constitutional status, statehood, and being bifurcated into two Union Territories.
Health Minister Sakina Itoo reinforced the government’s position by asserting that outsourcing must not be conflated with permanent government employment. She said the government’s commitment to providing one lakh jobs remains intact and cited the referral of 624 paramedical posts by the Health Department for recruitment, with around 400 candidates currently undergoing CID verification. Agriculture Minister Javid Ahmad Dar added that departments across sectors are continuously referring vacancies to designated recruiting agencies for selection through transparent procedures.
The joint press conference was convened in direct response to intensified criticism from the PDP a day earlier, when party leaders accused the NC government of orchestrating a wave of backdoor appointments through outsourcing channels. By presenting a united ministerial front, the NC leadership sought to reclaim the political narrative and firmly place responsibility for the outsourcing framework on its rivals.
