Kathmandu, July 18

Save Reservation Campaign, an alliance of organisations including Tarai Madhes National Council and Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities, championing the cause of affirmative action, protested in front of the Federal Public Service Commission office against its decision to go ahead with its process of recruiting 9,161 employees at 515 local levels.

SRC has been agitating against the FPSC’s job announcement stating that its move did not comply with the reservation policies as guaranteed by the constitution. The FPSC has, however, said that it was not in a position to guarantee reservation to all clusters as it has the obligation to fulfil vacant seats at local levels. Though the provincial public service commissions are authorised to recruit staff at local levels, central government had asked the federal FPSC to recruit staff at local levels as provincial PSCs were yet to be formed.

The FPSC is scheduled to conduct written exams for vacant posts from this Saturday.  Save Reservation Campaign Secretariat member Anand Gupta said his organisation will burn effigies of FPSC Chairman Umesh Mainali and Minister of Federal Affairs and General Administration Lalbabu Pandit tomorrow to protest against the job adverts. He said his organisation will also disrupt the PSC’s written exams scheduled for Saturday.

Gupta said they had gone to padlock the FPSC office today but were chased away by the police. He said FPSC’s decision had challenged Parliamentary supremacy as it ignored the State Affairs and Good Governance Committee’s fiat to halt the process.

He said Madhesis and Janajatis would lose large number of seats due to FPSC’s decision to recruit 9,161 employees at local levels. According to him, Madhesis will have to suffer 92 per cent loss and Janajatis 52 per cent. “FPSC has opened vacancies for 343 account officers, of which there is not a single seat reserved under Madhesi cluster,” Gupta argued.

Political analyst Tula Narayan Shah said out of 575 officer level posts advertised for local levels, 259 seats had to be advertised under reservation category but only 111 seats had been allotted for various clusters. He said Madhesi cluster should have got 57 seats but only 12 seats were allotted for them. Janajatis should have got 70 seats but they got only 14 seats. He said out of 2,346 assistant posts, 232 seats should have been advertised for Madhesis but only 12 seats were allotted for them. Janajatis should have got 95 seats but they got only two seats. Differently-abled groups were entitled to 52 seats but there is not a single seat allotted for them.

Out of 481 posts of engineers, Madhesis who should have got 48 seats got only seven seats. Janajatis who should have got 58 seats got only seven seats.