MPs cutting across party lines have come together to highlight the mid-career blues of Lok Sabha messengers who have been asked to sit for an exam to get their jobs made permanent.
These messengers or casual attendants in Parliament have the educational qualification of class VIII or class X. For the last 60 years, messengers have been recruited through interviews, regularised after the completion of some years in service and promoted on the basis of seniority. It was in 2007, that the Lok Sabha Secretariat Recruitments & Conditions of Service Order was amended, making a competitive exam compulsory for regularising the messengers’ services.
Lawmakers protesting against the Lok Sabha Secretariat’s move have requested Speaker Meira Kumar to protect the messengers’ jobs.
MPs argued that interviews and written exams are normally held at the time of appointment.
“Even some Ministers, MPs and senior officers of the Secretariat also felt it to be unjustifiable as it was not unprecedented, and wrote to the administration. A number of these messengers hail from SC/ST/OBC communities. Some of them are already 40-plus and have put in about 8-10 years of service in anticipation that they will be promoted on the basis of seniority,” a petition signed by 51 MPs from the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha said.
The messengers are caught in a bind as qualifying a written test would be next to impossible for them and quitting the job is not an option.
Union Minister of Tribal Affairs and Panchayati Raj V Kishore Chandra Deo has written a separate letter to the Lok Sabha Speaker, saying that amendments in service rules are a departure from the earlier procedure and will create a lot of uncertainty and hardships for the messengers.