Jobs & scams

The news of a special court framing charges against 27 persons, including two senior police officers, in a police recruitment scandal in Assam, has come out in newspapers on a day when Assam Chief Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma formally handed over appointment letters to nearly 9,000 constables in the Assam Police, apart from appointing 40 platoon commanders and 73 sub-inspectors. While recruitments and appointments in government departments in Assam have often triggered controversies leading to the unearthing of scams, it is very important to note that the present BJP-led government has started taking care that every single recruitment process is fair and that there is no irregularity in them. Saturday's appointment of nearly 30,000 people to different government departments is one such major step. In fact, it is a two-in-one achievement of this government. On one hand, it has accomplished this huge task of selecting about 30,000 people from among several lakh in a clean and fair manner, while on the other the government has begun providing jobs to the unemployed. That a special court on the other hand has framed charges against 27 persons, including two senior officers of the Assam Police should send a strong signal to all those within the government and outside of it that one really cannot go scot-free by committing a crime, especially when it comes to recruitment. But what is amazing is that the scam in which two senior police officers have been identified as the kingpins took place even after the police had arrested the Chairman and two members of the Assam Public Service Commission for the massive appointment scandal that had rocked the highest recruitment body of the state which has a very glorious past. Scamsters should be dealt with very strongly and stringent punishment should be meted out to them. After all, such wicked people not only tarnish the image of the recruitment mechanism and the government but also ruin the lives of hundreds of educated unemployed young people for whom getting a job is very important.