Tells PDP Their Brownie Point Rush Is Killing a Serious Issue; Asks Them to Contact Him on Understanding Outsourcing
Srinagar, June 26: J&K Peoples Conference President and MLA Handwara Sajad Lone on Friday drew a sharp distinction between outsourcing and backdoor appointments, calling the NC government’s conversion of public sector jobs into privately outsourced positions a far graver crime against the youth of Jammu and Kashmir, while simultaneously cautioning the PDP against muddying the waters for the sake of political point-scoring.
Lone said he had anticipated that the outsourcing controversy would eventually descend into a blame game between the two parties, and warned that mislabeling the issue does a disservice to the thousands of young people affected by it.
“These are not backdoor appointments. These are outsourced appointments of government jobs, and that distinction matters enormously,” he said, adding that when he raised the question in the Assembly, the government itself confirmed that 25,000 jobs had been outsourced.
The Peoples Conference president argued that outsourcing of government jobs represents a far graver threat than backdoor appointments, describing it as the systematic privatisation of public employment.
He said the practice introduces a fundamentally corrupt model in which outsourcing companies and the ruling class collude at the expense of ordinary job-seekers, rendering what should be secure government positions into precarious, temporary engagements that can be terminated at will. “Every new government will bring a new outsourcing agency,” he warned, “and those employed under this system will pay the price.”
Lone drew particular attention to the outsourcing of jobs under Mission Vatsalya — formerly known as the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) — a cause he said was deeply personal. He recalled that during his tenure as Social Welfare Minister, he had spearheaded the implementation of ICPS in Jammu and Kashmir, establishing for the first time a formal child protection regime in the region, complete with district-level child protection committees designed to shield children from sexual abuse, juvenile detention, and other threats.
He said that following 2019, the Lieutenant Governor’s administration had attempted to outsource appointments within ICPS and move to terminate existing contractual employees, a decision he had publicly opposed at the time. Employees had approached the courts and obtained a stay order, but the remaining recruitments were left pending.
Lone expressed that he had hoped the return of an elected government would reverse this course, only to find that the current NC administration had proceeded to outsource the remaining ICPS posts.
“To my horror, this elected government has proven to be as malafide in its intentions toward these employees as the post-2019 regime was,” he said, adding that government responses to his repeated Assembly questions on the matter were marked by arrogance.
Turning to the NC’s electoral promises, Lone reminded the party that it had pledged in its manifesto to create one lakh new government jobs. “Instead of creating 100,000 government jobs, they have so far converted 25,000 government jobs into private jobs,” he said, announcing that he would shortly release a detailed case study with dates establishing the NC government’s culpability in what he termed the outsourcing crime.
Addressing his colleagues in the PDP directly, Lone urged them not to allow the NC to escape accountability by conflating two distinct issues. “Don’t allow NC to walk away with murder by calling outsourcing backdoor appointments,” he said, appealing to the party to engage with the substance of the issue rather than seek political brownie points.
He offered to assist PDP leaders in understanding the nuances of the matter, while making clear that the real victims in this episode are the thousands of young people now employed at the mercy of private outsourcing firms with no security of tenure.
