The armed forces veterans have welcomed the decision of the Uttarakhand Government to select only ex-servicemen and their family members for recruitments through Uttarakhand Purva Sainik Kalyan Nigam limited (UPNl). The decision was taken in a meeting of secretaries chaired by Chief Secretary Shatrughan Singh on Tuesday.
large community of ex-servicemen in the State rejoiced at the decision of the Government. The President of the Uttarakhand Ex-Services league, Brigadier R S Rawat (Rtd) termed the decision as historic one. He said that the UPNl was constituted with an aim to provide employment opportunities for
ex-servicemen and their wards but vested interests ensured that large number of other people made a backdoor entry into it.
“The armed forces veterans and their family are rejoicing at the decision which should be been taken much earlier. Now we hope that the UPNl would stick with the purpose for which it was constituted,” said Brig Rawat.
Similar sentiments were echoed by Colonel P l Parashar (Rtd) as he congratulated the government for the decision. He said that more than 1 lakh ex-servicemen and their families were feeling cheated by the system when majority of those selected into UPNl had no connection with armed forces.
Surendra Joshi a retired Havildar said, “The Government should also ensure that the candidates without armed forces background selected earlier should be weeded out from the UPNl. The government should create a separate agency for these candidates but spare UPNl.’’
The veterans are putting the onus of the bold and justified decision on the Governor’s rule due to which such an important decision was taken by the officers.
It is worth mentioning here that the more than 22,000 candidates have been employed till date through the agency of UPNl and it is alleged that more than 70 percent recruitment in the agency occurred without norms.