Srinagar, June 28: Senior ministers of the National Conference-led government in Jammu and Kashmir convened an early-morning press conference on Sunday to directly rebuff accusations of irregular hiring, insisting that the outsourcing system at the centre of the controversy was not of their making, and daring their critics to prove otherwise.
Speaking on the directions of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, the advisor Nasir Aslam Wani opened the briefing by framing the issue as a matter of public trust. “Many misconceptions have been spread regarding our government’s employment policy,” he said. “It is our duty to clear these misunderstandings because it is our responsibility to ensure that the public receives the correct facts.”
Wani sought to draw a sharp contrast between the current recruitment drive and practices of the past. “Today, we are not witnessing the practices that were common in the past — paper leaks, cancelled selection lists, and other irregularities,” he told reporters. “Those experiences belong to the past.”
The government, he said, had launched a mission to fill nearly 40,000 vacancies through a transparent, merit-based process and expected it to be completed soon.
On the outsourcing controversy specifically, Wani was unequivocal in pointing the finger at the previous PDP administration. “Just as they left us with the consequences of the abrogation of Article 370, the loss of statehood, the division of the erstwhile state into three parts,” he said, “they also left behind this outsourcing system.” He added that the entire outsourcing framework had been put in place between 2015 and 2018, and that all appointments now being questioned were initiated before the 2024 elections. “The same process has simply continued.”
Wani then issued a direct challenge to critics: “If anyone can produce even a single piece of evidence proving that this government has made a backdoor appointment, let them do so.”
Cabinet minister Sakina Itoo took over to explain the operational rationale for outsourcing, describing it as a short-term administrative necessity rather than a recruitment channel. “Outsourced personnel are engaged over and above the sanctioned strength of any department,” she said, offering the example of a hospital that installs an extra X-ray machine but needs a technician immediately. “Patients cannot be made to wait indefinitely while the formal recruitment process takes place.”
Itoo also clarified the procurement process for outsourcing agencies. “These outsourcing agencies are selected through the Government e-Marketplace portal using a transparent tendering process,” she said, adding that renewals and extensions were merely a continuation of policy inherited from the previous government.
Both ministers framed the press conference as a response to what they described as deliberate political point-scoring by the PDP, a party they accused of criticising a system it had itself designed. “Those making these allegations should know this better than anyone,” Wani said, “because the outsourcing system itself was introduced during their tenure.”
