Ashfaquzzaman Chowdhury :
Ongoing government jobseekers’ movement against imbalanced quota system has taken a new turn recently. It is apparent that their movement is getting more organized and strengthened. Protestors are together holding human-chains, rallies and blocking roads simultaneously at different places across the country to have the attention of the government. They are carrying banners and placards writing their demands as well as the consequences of the existing unreasonable and imbalanced quota system in their life. Their main demand is to change the recruitment policy in the government jobs and reduce the percentage of different categories of quotas to an acceptable level. In some placards in their hands written that the quota should not be more than ten percentages of the total vacancies. They are also demanding to recruit in the vacant positions from the general merit list where there is a shortage of qualified candidate from quota applicants and to put an end immediately to special recruitment test for quota applicants.
This protest against the unjust percentages of quota is not a fresh one. It is the continuation of the protest started since the beneficiary of freedom fighter’s quota has been extended from their Child to their Grandchild’s in the government jobs. As this decision had been taken for the political purpose of the ruling party pricing the employment opportunity of the general young aspirant meritorious jobseekers, it aggrieved them. This protest is also the outcome of a long unresponsive attitude of the policymakers to the dream, hopes, and needs of the general job seekers. It is to be noticed that the participants of the protest are not limited to job seekers only but it includes outgoing college and university graduates and their family members too. Till now the protest can be said as non-political and non-violent in nature. However, it is being seen that the police and the student front of the ruling party frequently became violent against the protestors. An unidentified group is also involved in doing offensive activities to put question to the intention of whole protest and the protestors and to divert the focus.
The State need to have qualified personnel’s to perform its activities properly. The government as the driver of the State appoints employees time to time against the vacancies available in different sectors following the due procedure of appointment. It is an applicant’s legitimate expectation that he will be appointed in the vacant position on the basis of his merit after duly examined his quality. Due to the existing imbalanced quota system government have to compromise the merit for quota. In other words, it has to recruit comparatively less qualified quota candidates in the vacant positions of the government jobs though there are comparatively much better non-quota general candidates available. This unacceptable situation has arisen only because of the existing unjustified ratio of employment opportunity for the general and quota candidates. This situation deprives the meritorious persistently of being recruited. Their dreams are turning into ashes and hard work becomes meaningless.
It is witnessed that even though there are in total fifty-six percentages of vacancies available for different quota candidates, every year most of the positions available for quota candidates in the BCS examination remain vacant due to a shortage of qualified candidates. On the other hand, these vacant positions are not even filled from the general merit list candidates.
This situation is not only causing economic loss but also an administrative loss to the efficiency of the government. The people who may get better service from the government by the recruitment remain deprived due to a shortage of supply against the demand of qualified candidates.
Moreover, the qualified jobseekers defeat to the imbalanced system of recruitment causing frustration among them about their future. Some brilliant candidates who could have contributed to the country a lot are forced to leave the country for better opportunity and to get the value of their knowledge and skill. Besides, sometimes deep frustration leads them to involve in anti-state activities as well as suicidal attempts. On the other hand, the existing imbalanced and unjust recruitment system is causing post-recruitment problems as well. There exists a de facto division between quota and non-quota employees which ultimately reduces the effectiveness of the government.
Every year millions of candidates are applying for different government jobs with the hope to serve the country and also to have a good life in future. Among these applicants number of general applicants are quite high than the quota candidates. But astonishingly, in percentage less than half of the total position available for general candidates and the rest are available only for quota candidates. If the government continues with this employment policy the quality of the governance will fall, the number of qualified unemployed will increase, the country will lose merits and ultimately the wheel of development will start to move backward.
(Ashfaquzzaman Chowdhury, LLB, LLM (New Delhi), Apprentice Lawyer, Sylhet District Bar Association)
