Calls for merit-based benefits, one-time allocation
SRINAGAR: All Parties Sikh Coordination Committee (APSCC) while demanding reservation for Sikhs in education and government jobs said that reservation benefits should be given to the people who really deserve it and that too should be one time and not a continuous process. It said facts and provisions should be sorted out meticulously so that merit holders do not suffer and maximum share should be for majority community.
In a statement issued here, APSCC Chairman Jagmohan Singh Raina said that it has been observed that a person gets benefits of reservation at multiple fronts. He said that the process needs to be changed and it should be the prerogative of the candidate to avail the reservation benefits at the education level or at the job level.
“Once a youth avails the benefits of reservation the process should be stopped forthwith. It is not just to extend the benefits of the reservation to the same youth time and again,” he said.
Raina said that under the National Minority Act Sikh community is a minority but still then the benefits of reservation have not been extended to the youth of the community. He said that this is injustice with the community and to that the Sikh youth have been pushed to the wall.
“It is quite astonishing and surprising that the ruling National Conference despite claiming being a secular party does not want reservation quota to be extended to the Sikh community in Jammu & Kashmir. This speaks of a double policy and the party leaders are answerable about the same,” he said
The APSCC Chairmansaid that while no reservation benefits have been given to the people who came to country from Pakistan in 1947, 1965 and 1971, a community that got displaced within the country continues to get reservation benefits and other privileges from the successive governments whether at the central level or the union territory level.
Raina said that a committee of experts should be formed so as to find out the people who should be given the reservation benefits. “There are many areas in the union territory that continue to be deprived of basic amenities like water, electricity and roads,” he said.