THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Six days after job aspirants protesting in front of the Secretariat held conciliatory talks with two government officials, the LDF government has come out with an order specifying the assurances given to them. But since the government has not given any guarantee on providing jobs, aspirants figuring in the Public Service Commission’s rank lists for Last Grade Servant (LGS) and Civil Police Officer (CPO) posts have decided to continue with their indefinite protest.
The government order (GO), issued by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) T K Jose on Thursday, states that maximum appointments will be made from the LGS rank list but the CPO rank list — which had expired — will not be revived. The LGS rank list is valid for two more months.The GO also stated that LGS aspirants demanded that the working hours of night watchmen should be regularised to eight hours from double duty.
They also demanded to avoid temporary postings and instead appoint aspirants from the rank list as per the verdict of the Kerala State Human Rights Commission and the Administrative Tribunal. Other demands included making appointments from the existing list to the Secretariat and the Public Service Commission, and sticking to the High Court verdict to make last grade appointments in the higher secondary department.
Laya Rajesh, one of the LGS aspirants, told TNIE that they are going ahead with their indefinite hunger strike as their original demands have not been met.“So far, only 6,000 appointments have been made in two-and-a-half years from a total of 46, 285 persons in the LGS rank list. Just because the state government is saying that they are examining our demands doesn’t mean that we will end our indefinite hunger strike,” Laya said.
Unfortunately, the government is firm in its stand not to revoke the expired rank list of CPO. The cabinet had already taken a decision related to this on Wednesday. Regarding the CPO rank list, the order states that 5,609 people were provided with advice memo. But M Vishnu, a CPO aspirant, said they too have decided to intensify protest.
“The government’s claim that the CPO rank list has expired is false. As per PSC Rule 13, a rank list has a validity of three years or until the next CPO rank list is published. The government had announced the appointment of 2,000 State Industrial Security Force personnel on 9 January, 2020, and another 1,200 temporary vacancies on 17 June, 2020. According to an RTI reply from the State Police Headquarters, the government hasn’t considered vacancies anticipated until 2021, December,” Vishnu said.The protesters had held conciliatory talks with Additional Chief Secretary (Home) T K Jose and ADGP (Headquarters) Manoj Abraham last Saturday at the Secretariat. They had demanded that their issues be addressed in writing, which has led to the government order.