What could not be done in 12 years will be done in two months -- this is what Bharatiya Janta Party-led Government in Jharkhand has vowed to do on the contentious issue of domicile. During Question Hour in Jharkhand Assembly, the State Government assured that domicile status will be defined within a span of two months.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Saryu Roy informed the Speaker that the Government will initiate efforts towards building consensus over the issue through inter-party discourse and wide consultations with civil society. Earlier, the Government claimed to possess guidance materials sufficient to proceed in the direction of finalising domicile policy.
"During the ongoing session, we will call an all-party meeting and also hold discussions with distinguished people, who are not organised in the form of a political party. We will start the process of dialogue begun by the previous Government and define domicile in two months and then it will be announced," said the Parliamentary Affairs Minister.
The guidance material claimed by Roy has been derived from the meetings of draft committee, which had laid out broad parameters for domicile that stated that those who have been residing in Jharkhand for the past 15 years or more, are Government employees, would be considered "Jharkhand Niwasis". Besides, the committee had recommended that the third and fourth grade jobs in various Government departments should go to only those local residents categorised as "moolvasis" or "sthaniya" (original settlers). Further, the Moolvasis were divided into two categories - the khatiyani (those with land records and other documents) and the non-khatiyani.
However, the Government was cornered on the issue of providing adequate representation to people of Jharkhand in Government jobs. The Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) demanded the State Government to communicate aspirations of Jharkhand Assembly to the Central Government through Parliament and get a reservation policy framed for Jharkhand.
"Employment policies of four States were framed by the Centre on those States' request. Whether the State Government will apprise Parliament of the emotions of Jharkhand or notIJ Do they (Government) want to give jobs to locals or notIJ" asked JVM MlA Pradeep Yadav.
The State Government went on defensive on opening a channel of communication with the Centre to put employment policy in place for Jharkhand and expressed its resolve to conduct an exercise in that direction under various sections of the Constitution.
"We do not want to interfere in the business of Parliament, which is sensitive to these issues. The Government will look into that at its level," said Roy. Notably, the Assembly witnessed several rounds of blame game between Government and Opposition parties over alleged disadvantage to local candidates in State Government jobs, especially in the ongoing recruitment of teachers.
Meanwhile, inertia is likely to subside and land mutation will be carried out expeditiously with a timeframe of 90-day for disposing an application for mutation. The work will now be covered under Right to Service Act and the hurdles due to system upgrade will be addressed to clear the backlog.
"We can't deny that there is a problem. I want to assure the House we will make sure that the work is done in 90-day time and within seven to eight months we will make the entire system online," said Chief Minister Raghubar Das.
The issue of piling applications for mutation was raised in the House and according to figure suggested in the question raised on the issue more than one lakh applications are pending across the State.