Influential stenographer is Secretary to EDI Directo
Evades transfer since appointment, sidelines senior most officers
Srinagar, Jan 27: In what could be termed as a glaring example of “mismanagement”, a key and senior administrative position in the Jammu & Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI) has been assigned to a contractual employee.
According to some of the agrievd officals, this has led to the “inefficiency” in the work culture and at the same time has sabotaged the use of the services of appropriate officers for the designated work.
A contractual official appointed as a Junior Stenographer in the year 2017 has been ever since posted in the JKEDI Director’s personal section at Head Office Pampore. He has been designated as the Secretary to the Director and has been enjoying the prime posting and the powers otherwise assigned to the Executive Secretary or Executive Assistant to the Director of the institute. Contrary to this and in violation of the institute rules, the permanent employee appointed as Executive Secretary to the Director has been posted in a district centre of the institute, so that there is no hurdle in the functioning of this blue-eyed stenographer.
Employees of the institute have alleged that the junior stenographer who holds the key position has been clandestinely given the custody of all significant office records including the Civil Secretariat cum JKEDI’s Administrative Department communication files including the recently introduced e-office. “It is him who has been briefing the successive Directors. His ill and misinformed briefing decides how the chair reacts. Every document has to go through him first to reach the Director. This is highly unfortunate and against the rules. Why isn’t he posted in any district like other senior employees of the institute,” the EDI employees questioned while talking to this newspaper.
They said even a senior most employee, Senior Manager P&A was placed in a district centre but this junior stenographer has been enjoying the plump posting since his appointment on contractual basis.
“The junior stenographer has managed his undue stay in the Director’s personal section through the tenure of 8 Directors and Executive Directors. Though one Director, Mr. Tufail Mattoo removed him from his section on the basis of official misconduct but as soon as he was transferred from EDI, the blue-eyed candidate managed to return to the sensitive position and took back the control so as to keep the pot boiling,” the employees alleged.
Interestingly the same junior stenographer is a litigant against the UT government and the institute in a sub-judice matter pertaining to his regularisation and has access to all the information and records related to his case. Even the current Executive Director of the institute recommended his removal from the personal section of the Director after observing his involvement in concealing the important documents related to the sub-judice case and keeping in view the sensitivity of the post he is holding. But we fail to understand that how this blue-eyed employee is still ruling the roost at this sensitive post, the employees said.
They added that there are many similar examples both in Sempora and Jammu campus of the institute wherein some officials have not been shifted from their places of posting for the last 8-9 years helping them to grow as strong as banyan trees.
“There is an immediate need to put the house in order. Since the Director General has joined the institute recently, we expect a redressal of such issues to streamline the functioning of the institute,” the employees added further.
Director, JKEDI, Asif Hamid Khan, there has been a lot of disruption in the administrative matters over the years. He said that there are many issues that are under government’s consideration and a committee has been constituted to look into the matter.