Greater Kashmir

SRINAGAR | August 02 , 2014, Saturday

BUSINESS

epaper.GreaterKashmir.com

8 years on, ITI instructors
await regularization
MUDASIR YAQOOB

Srinagar, Aug 1: The
Industrial Training Institute (ITI) contractual
instructors have urged the
state government to formulate a policy for their regularization on the pattern of
Rehbar-e-Taleem teachers.
General Secretary, All
J&K Academic Arrangements Instructors’ Association, Ghulam Mohidin said:
“We have been working
with Technical Education
department for last 8 years
without any break. Despite
rendering continuous services we are being paid a
meager monthly salary of
Rs 5500.”
He said the “callous”
approach of state government towards the instructors had cast them a social
stigma.
The instructors said they
were appointed strictly on
the basis of merit against
clear vacancies. “Unlike
other teaching staff, we
don’t have any winter

Govt has no money to pay for pensioners?
GK NEWS NETWORK

Srinagar, Aug 1: State pensioners
today complained the government has
not released pension payments this
month.
The pensioners said they were taken
by utter surprise when they found their
accounts had not been credited with the
pension amount.
A source in Finance department said
the state government “has no funds at
the moment to release pension payment.”
The state government is paying over Rs
vacation. We are posted in
far-flung areas of Tangdhar,
Machil, Lolaab, Kargil,
Kathua, Surankote, Baderwah, Doda, etc. without any
extra allowances. Yet when it
comes to regularizing our services, the government plays
indifferent,” Mohidin said,
adding that the government
had utilized their services
during the assembly, Parliament and Panchayat elections

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200 crore per month to 1.55
lakh state pensioners.
The pensioners said
the non-release of the
pension had caused lot
of problems to them as
many among them had to
purchase medicine which
they could not for want of
money.
The source said the government still owed Rs 115
crore to J&K Bank on account of pension
payment made by the bank in June 2014.

also.
“The government is not
even framing a policy for
our regularization,” they
said.
They said: “We apprehend
that our services will be dispensed with in wake of the
joining of the regular instructors after being selected by
the SSB.”
When contacted, Director,
Technical Education, Pervaiz

Khateeb told Greater Kashmir that the power to take a
decision on their regularization or frame a policy in this
regard vests with the state
government.
“I can only implement the
orders passed by the higher
ups in the government. It is
not up to me to regularize
their services or frame any
policy for the ITI instructors,” he said.

Gold up on
scattered retail
buying

New Delhi, Aug 1: Gold
prices inched up by Rs 5
to Rs 28,250 per ten gram
in New Delhi on Friday on
scattered buying by retailers amid recovery in global
prices.
Silver, however, met with
resistance and shed Rs 50 to
Rs 44,850 per kg.
Traders said apart from
buying by retailers for the
coming festive season, a better
trend in the global market
mainly led to rise in gold prices.
Globally, gold traded 0.20
per cent higher at $ 1,284.91
an ounce in London.
In Delhi, gold of 99.9 and
99.5 per cent purity traded
marginally higher by Rs
5 each to Rs 28,250 and Rs
28,050 per ten gram respectively. It had gained Rs 45
on Thursday.
Sovereign, held steady at
Rs 24,700 per piece of eight
gram. PTI

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Govt seeks ways to increase
use of broadband capacity
New Delhi, Aug 1: Concerned over under-utilisation
of broadband capacity, the
government on Friday sought
suggestions from the industry
to enhance its usage that is at
around 50 per cent level.
“Whatever infrastructure
is available today in broadband, much of it is in government sector. Most of it is
not being used. Hardly 50-60
per cent of capacity is being
used,” Telecom Secretary
Rakesh Garg said at i-Bharat
event organised by industry
body FICCI.
“We have to do lot of work
even to make this benefit
available to the people,” he
said, inviting suggestions
from industry to enhance the
use of the broadband infrastructure.
“What private and government sector can jointly do to

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see how we can use most of it,
where ever it has reached? At
least, it has reached the block
level,” Mr. Garg said.
He added that the government and other stakeholders
have to find the reason for
under-utilisation of broadband by the private sector
“whether it is cost, speeds of
connectivity or is it devices
that are very costly”.
Mr. Garg said the government is working to connect
all the 2.5 lakh panchayats
with high speed broadband
network but stakeholders
need to ensure that the new
infrastructure being laid is
utilised by people in the rural
areas.
“In coming three years all
2.5 lakh gram panchayat will
be connected from their block
headquarter with broadband
which will give them speed of

minimum 100 mbps (megabit
per second).
If it reaches to villages and
it is not used then its maintenance will be also very costly
affair,” Mr. Garg said.
Department of Electronics and IT (DEITY) Joint
Secretary Rajendra Kumar
said the government is ready
to provide infrastructure
required to enhance utilisation but still for some reason
initiatives have not achieved
desired impact.
“Out of 252 planned projects,
222 are operational. It is a success. We now need transformation. There is need to integrate
services. We must provide core
IT infrastructure on demand in
plug and play fashion so that
they can focus on operation
development and not on creating infrastructure,” Kumar
said. PTI