ATSUM urges rejig of recruitment rules
Source: Chronicle News Service / Newmai News Network
Imphal, June 07 2022:
All Tribal Students' Union, Manipur (ATSUM) has urged the Superintendent of Post Offices, Manipur Division, on Tuesday for modification of the recruitment guidelines with respect to "compulsory knowledge of local language".
In a representation, ATSUM said that the notification fpr online recruitment of Gramin Daksevaks, 2022 of Manipur Postal division under North East Circle in the local newspapers came as a "shocker to the tribal populace of the state wherein candidates were mandated to have studied Manipuri at least up to Class X standard as declared by the state board" .
ATSUM said that this recruitment guideline of mandating Manipuri language tantamount to imposition of "dominant general category Meitei/Manipuri language on the innocent tribal people and thereby, systematically discriminating substantial numbers of potential candidates belonging to Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities" .
The tribal student body mentioned that, Manipur being a diverse state, has 34 Scheduled Tribes recognised under the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) orders, 1950 (PART III - Rules and orders under the constitution) Part X - Manipur.
The scheduled tribes constitute 34.2 per cent of the total population of Manipur according to the 2001 census.
The ST communities speak their own different languages, and that most of the languages of the recognised ST are incorporated as a Major Indian Language (MIL) as a part of standard curriculum in the schools and educational institutions.
"For which, tribal people normally opted to study their own language (MIL) or Additional English in lieu of Meitei/Manipuri language in Class X and Class XI standards.
As such, mandating the scheduled tribe candidates to produce certificate of studying Meitei/Mani-puri language for recruitment to the post of Gramin Daksevaks (GDS) in the Manipur Post DP vision is unfair", it pointed out.
ATSUM then mentioned that the same matter of mandating "compulsory knowledge of local language" was imposed in the recruitment of Junior Associates (Customer Support & Sales) of State Bank of India on April 27, 2021 .
"But with the timely intervention of MP (Outer Manipur), Dr Bhagwat Karad, the Union Minister of State for Finance, on November 5, 2021 conveyed that SBI had agreed to modify the recruitment guidelines with respect to compulsory knowledge of Local Language wherein option for either Manipuri or English will be adopted from the recruitment year 2022-23 onwards," the tribal student body added.
Therefore, ATSUM "beseeches your office for kind perusal into the matter to ensure that either each of recognised scheduled Tribes Languages (MIL) of Manipur are included as list of local languages of Manipur or the option of English be incorporated in Heu of local language in the recruitment guidelines of Gramin Daksevaks and other future recruitments of Indian Postal Services of Manipur Post Division so as to facilitate a judicious and fair recruitment process".
"This representation is submitted to enable that, the scheduled tribe communities of Manipur state also avail the provision of equal employment opportunity as mandated by Article 16 of Indian Constitution," ATSUM stated.