Giving a fresh impetus to the recruitment process which had slowed down due to the ongoing Covid pandemic, Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha on Friday approved the proposal for the recruitment of 800 sub-inspectors in the Jammu and Kashmir Police.

In a step towards ensuring transparency and fairness in the overall recruitment process, the Lt Governor also approved the selection process of all non-gazetted level posts in all the three departments i.e., police, prisons and fire & emergency services departments through the Services Selection Board (SSB).

The selections to the posts will be based on the written and physical test. The Committee for physical endurance test shall be constituted by the SSB in consultation with the government and the number of candidates to be called for the physical fitness test will be based on the pattern adopted by some of the states and union territories (UTs). The entire process for the fitness test shall be duly video-graphed for the purpose of transparency.

Further, to address the long-standing issues of seniority hampering the career progression of police officials at different levels, now a common seniority of the sub-inspectors (SIs) recruited against the direct recruitment vacancies in the Armed and the Executive Wing, through a combined examination, will be maintained for ensuring smooth career progression of the police officers.

Pertinently, the announcement of recruitment comes two days after the Lt Governor noted that the UT administration is moving ahead in direction of expediting the process for recruitment of the 25,000 promised jobs in the public sector and government departments to empower the youth of Jammu and Kashmir. He observed that around 18,000 posts have been advertised by SSB for recruitment in various departments and more posts are being identified gradually.

Outlining that the youths of J&K have a key role to play in the overall development of the region, the Lt Governor asserted that the J&K government is planning to reach out to 50,000 youth for financial assistance under the next leg of the Back to Village program, the details of which would be finalized soon. He noted that, as of date, the Jammu and Kashmir Bank has advanced more than Rs 340 crores to as many as 19,600 youths from across the UT, empowering them financially to pursue their dreams and to create livelihood opportunities for others as well.