Facing flak for the fiasco involving son of Speaker of Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha, the Uttarakhand Purva Sainik Kalyan Nigam limited (UPNl) has decided to conduct an inquiry on all appointments made by it in last two years. The Managing Director (MD) of UPNl Brigadier PPS Pahwa told The Pioneer that all appointments made after July 2016 would be under the ambit of the inquiry.
He however said that he is not in a position to tell about the exact number of appointments made by the agency in last two years is not available. It is pertinent to mention here that the state government released a Government Order (GO) on July 5, 2016 in which it is clearly mentioned that only sons and daughters of serving or retired armed forces personnel apart from ex servicemen are eligible for appointments under UPNl.
The GO was necessitated after reports that large numbers of candidates having no connection with armed forces were provided jobs by the agency.
The purpose of creation of UPNl was to set up an outsourcing agency by which contractual jobs could be provided to the ex-servicemen and their progeny. Experts believe that the outcome of the inquiry would be interesting as apart from identifying the number of non armed forces background candidates it will also expose chinks in the system of UPNl.
The UPNl was forced to order the inquiry after it was reported that son of Speaker Prem Chand Agarwal was appointed on the post of Assistant Engineer (AE) in the Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan in gross violation of the norms. Questions were raised over this appointment as Agarwal has no connection with the armed forces.
The appointment generated a lot of controversy which resulted in resignation of Piysuh Agarwal (Son of the Speaker) from his post.