The Jammu & Kashmir Government on Tuesday revealed in the Assembly that Rs 31 crore has been collected as job test fees from students and it has no proposal to abolish it.
In a written reply to a question posed by Peoples Conference MLA Sajad Gani Lone, the Minister in-charge of the General Administration Department (GAD) informed the House that Rs 31,75,32,400 has been collected as application fees by the Jammu & Kashmir Public Service Commission and the Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection Board. The Minister stated in the detailed reply that no proposal is currently under consideration to abolish job test fees.
“The application fee charged by recruiting agencies is meant to cover administrative and operational expenses incurred in conducting examinations. These include costs related to advertisement, processing of applications, printing of examination materials, deployment of manpower, infrastructure, and technological arrangements required to ensure transparency and efficiency in the recruitment process,” the Minister said.
He added that the fee structure remains reasonable and is on par with that charged by various government recruiting agencies across the country. In a post on X, formerly twitter, Peoples Conference President Sajad Gani Lone slammed the government for breaking its promises.“In its election manifesto, JKNC promised to waive off application fees for recruitment agencies like SSRB, JKPSC, and other institutions in J&K. I asked a question to find out whether that election promise had been fulfilled,” Lone said.
He added that the Minister in-charge of GAD – who also happens to be the MLA from Ganderbal and the Chief Minister- informed the House that Rs 31 crore had been collected in fees since the government came to power in October last year. “This Rs 31 crore reflects one of the many broken promises and a trail of lies and deceit,” Lone said. “Please, for once, can they admit that they lied – and apologise?, he asked .
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