Quota denial finger at GTA in teacher jobs

Darjeeling, June 12: The Nepali Scheduled Caste community has alleged that the GTA Sabha didn’t follow constitutional norms of reservation in the recent recruitment of primary school teachers in the hills, denying jobs to 47 members of the community. The working president of the All India Nepali Scheduled Caste Association, Hem Baraily, said the GTA had overlooked the mandatory reservation of 22 per cent for the community while appointing 575 primary school teachers recently. “While the SC community is entitled to 22 per cent reservation, the quota for the Scheduled Tribe community and Other Backward Classes stands at 6 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively,” said Baraily. According to the association, of the 575 appointments made by the GTA, 127 should have been from among the Scheduled Caste members. “Even though the GTA has not yet given us the list of candidates appointed for the posts, we have learnt from our sources that only 80 applicants from our community have been given jobs. This means 47 members of our community have been denied jobs,” said Baraily. . The community, which consists of 9.32 per cent of the hill population, was among the first to openly support the Morcha when it was formed in October 2007. G.N. Lamjel, the general secretary of the association, said: “A meeting of the association was held in Darjeeling on Sunday and representatives of our community expressed strong resentment against the Morcha for ignoring the reservation for the Scheduled Caste community.” The meeting, held at the Biswakarma Samaj Bhavan in Darjeeling, was chaired by R. Thatal, the president of the association. Baraily and representatives of different units from across the hills were present at the meeting. The SC leaders said the community members would not allow the infringement of their constitutional rights. “We are only demanding the right that has been enshrined in the Constitution and to ensure that our community is protected, we will explore all possible options that are available to us. To start with, we will soon take up the matter with the National Commission on Schedule Caste,” said Baraily. When it comes to the reservation, the SC community is also aggrieved that of the 45 GTA seats to which elections are held, not a single one is reserved for the SC and ST. “We raised the issue with the Morcha and we also told chief minister Mamata Banerjee that no seats were reserved for the SC and ST community in the elections to the GTA. The chief minister assured us that she would look into the matter, but nothing much has happened,” said Baraily. Seats are reserved for the SC and ST communities in the assemblies and Parliament. The SC association had supported the Morcha after its birth in 2007 as the Sixth Schedule demand raised by GNLF leader Subash Ghisingh did not have any provision for reserving seats for the SC community. However, there was a provision for seat reservation for the ST community under the Sixth Schedule. The Morcha has given tickets to the SC and ST community members in the GTA polls. If a seat is reserved for a particular community, only members from the same can contest the polls. Asked about the SC community’s charge of not complying with the reservation in the recruitment of the primary school teachers, Roshan Giri, the executive Sabha member in charge of primary education, said: “As far as I know, the roster system has been maintained.”