Srinagar 16 June : Director General of Police (DGP) Dilbag Singh on behalf of Jammu and Kashmir Police Pariwar has condoled the demise of Inspector Arshad Ahmad Khan, SHO police station Anantnag, who succumbed this afternoon at AIMS, New Delhi.

DGP has expressed his grief over the loss of young and brave officer. He has conveyed his heartfelt condolence to the bereaved family and prayed for the departed soul. .
The DGP has said that whole Jammu and Kashmir Police Pariwar is with the bereaved family at this hour and will always be at the beck and call of the family.

As was reported earlier, Arshad Khan was crictically injured in a terror attack on K.P Road Anantnag on June 12. He was being treated at SKIMS Soura, and today moring was airlifted to AIIMS, New Delhi where he left for heavenly abode in the afternoon.

Born to Mushtaq Ahmad Khan and Ms Mehbooba Begum in Balgardan Srinagar, Khan was appointed as Sub-Inspector in J&K police in the year 2002 and served in various important capacities. The martyr is survived by parents, wife, two sons of age 2 and 5 years

 
SRINAGAR, JUNE 16 : The Department of Higher Education has clarified a news story regarding NAAC accreditation of Degree Colleges in Jammu and Kashmir.
 
“It is clarified that assessment norms of the NAAC have undergone certain changes in recent times under which obtaining higher grades of A and A ++ and also maintaining earlier NAAC gradings of educational institutions have become a challenge for the Higher Education institutions. 70% of the assessment is virtually machine driven and in this process local difficulties and vagaries can easily miss deserving consideration. Accordingly, this concern is under a frank and open discussion at the national level and hence is not outside the purview of revision,” an official statement said.
 
“Since the NAAC accreditation has been made a precondition for receiving financial assistance of national level bodies including UGC, RUSA, etc, the state of Jammu and Kashmir has taken the challenge of getting all it’s eligible higher education institutions accredited at the hands of assessing agencies like NAAC, NIRF, AICTE, NBA etc within the timeline of 2022 set as a national level target,” the statement said.
 
“The Department of Higher Education is conscious that the newly established colleges shall require substantial time to achieve perfection with regard to the seven main criterions of NAAC assessment. These colleges being in infancy cannot be expected to have well-established systems for student placements, corporate MoUs, IT-supported academic transactions, skilling and vocational development of students, state of the art and inter-disciplinary research lab facilities which are some benchmarks for fetching highest NAAC grades,” it said.
 
“The Department derives the satisfaction that the NAAC authorities have established a special cell at its Bangalore headquarters to facilitate the degree colleges of the state of Jammu and Kashmir to sail through the mandatory stages of submission of IIQA, Student Satisfaction Survey, Data Verification and Validation, Submission of Self Study Report and NAAC peer team visits etc which require a lot of honest effort and dedication of stakeholders including students, teachers, support staff, parents, alumni and the administrative department. The Department also records its appreciation for the newly established colleges for having exhibited the passion and courage for presenting themselves for NAAC accreditation despite their difficulties and challenges with regard to infrastructure, permanent faculty and student support systems.
 
The Department is honestly committed to providing support and necessary handholding to all the higher education institutions in their journey and aspirations for achieving excellence in all aspects of their functioning. The Department is proudly announcing that because of the efforts of all the stakeholders the number of accredited colleges with various NAAC rankings has swelled from 13 odd (April 2019) to around 30 at present while all remaining eligible colleges are at various stages of the accreditation process,” the statement added.

Srinagar, Jun 16 : Advisor to the Governor, Khurshid Ahmed Ganai, today urged the Employment Department to provide all assistance to unemployed educated youth in the State in their hunt for jobs in the ever-expanding domestic and global markets.

He said the focus of employment exchanges should be on vocational guidance and career counseling and these exchanges should link the employer with the registered candidates.

The Advisor made these observations while reviewing the functioning of the Labour & Employment Department and especially the newly-launched Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Mandhan Yojana (PM-SYM).

Commissioner/ Secretary, Labour & Employment, Mr. Saurabh Bhagat, Labour Commissioner, Mr. Bashir Ahmad Khan, Director, EDI, Mr. Tufail Mattoo, Director Employment, Mr. Y. P. Suman, Managing Director Women’s Development Corporation, Mrs. Nahida Soz, CEO, BOCWWB, Peer Muzaffar and all district and sectoral officers of the Labour & Employment Department were present on the occasion.

Asking the Department to take a cue from successful start-ups in the country like paytm, urban clap, housing.com etc, the Advisor said new innovative ideas shall help in establishment of enterprises that have greater scope and market acceptability.

Laying stress upon providing better working conditions to the working class, Ganai stressed upon strict implementation of labour laws to protect the interest of the labour community. He said the officers of the Department should be well-versed with labour laws and new legislations so that they are better enforced in the larger interest of the working and construction class.

While reviewing the newly-launched Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Mandhan Yojana, the Advisor asked the Department to closely monitor registration of workers in CICs. He suggested use of random checking to revalidate data which shall plug holes in computing errors while registering eligible persons.

Under PMSYM which offers regular pension to the labour class people after they attain the age of 60, as many as 56,313 registrations had been done and 46,927 cards printed so far in the State.

Presenting a detailed review of the three wings of the Labour & Employment Department, the Administrative Secretary briefed the Advisor about various schemes and welfare programmes launched for educated unemployed youth and the labour community. He informed the meeting about various schemes being implemented through J&K Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI).

The meeting was informed that during 2018-19, as many as 966 Self-Help Groups (SHGs) were registered which comprised 4188 engineers. As many as 2237 works worth Rs.191.54 crore were allotted to these SHGs.

Director EDI informed the meeting about Seed Capital Fund Scheme (SCFS), Youth Start-up Loan Scheme and giving term and education loans to youth through National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation. He said that projects worth Rs. 536.77 crore had been sanctioned under these schemes and as many as 13,464 enterprises were established generating employment for 43192 persons.

While briefing the Advisor about the initiatives on labour welfare, the Labour Commissioner said a payment gateway would soon be launched to make online contributions for the benefit of subscribers. He said concerted efforts are on to register new subscribers and complete the disbursement of backlog claims and make recoveries from the defaulters.

The meeting was informed that all 5.10 lakh Provident Fund accounts had been digitized and the scanning of important subscribers’ documents would be taken up in the next phase.

The Advisor appreciated the role of Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board (BOCWWB) in providing financial assistance to workers in the form of education and marriage assistance as well as in case of injury, death and permanent disability of workers.

The meeting was informed that against a corpus of Rs 899.66 crore, Rs. 371.79 crore were disbursed amongst construction workers since 2011. This includes education assistance amounting to Rs 266.82 crore, marriage assistance of Rs. 73.98 crore and death assistance amounting to Rs. 24.82 crore.

New Delhi, Jun 16 : Governor, Satya Pal Malik while addressing the 5th meeting of the Governing Council of NITI Aayog sought personal intervention of the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, for accelerating the development in the State which is imperative for putting the State on the path of peace, progress and prosperity.

Addressing the 5th meeting of the Governing Council of NITI Aayog, Governor highlighted the key initiatives undertaken during the last one year. He said there was a need for giving further impetus to the development process in the State for which the Government of India was requested to provide liberal financial support.

Highlighting some of the key initiatives undertaken, since the State was brought under Governor’s rule on June, 20 2018, followed by President’s rule on December, 20, 2018, the Governor said among the major achievements has been the empowerment of people through peaceful Panchayat and ULB elections held in November- December after a gap of over 7 years. Despite boycott calls and threats, people came out in large numbers to vote and overall turnover was 74% without any loss of life.

The Governor said that the State Government has introduced necessary amendments in the Jammu and Kashmir Panchayati Raj Act to strengthen the institution of Panchayats and given them more powers. In order to further this effort, he said that the State Government is organising a week long “Back to the Village” programme from 20th to 27th June 2019. All gazetted officers will stay in a Panchayat for two days and will connect with Panchayat representatives, see how government services are being delivered and understand local needs. “This is a first in J&K we are new to this. “The enthusiasm all around gives us hope that the future is bright for grassroots democracy in the state”, Governor observed.

Governor said that equitable development of all regions is a priority for the Government. While Elevated High Speed Rail Corridors and two satellite townships will be developed in Jammu and Srinagar, the aspirations of Ladakh have been fulfilled through creation of a separate division, a University and empowerment of the Hill Councils. Kargil will soon have a full fledged commercial airport like Leh, he said.

The central government will hand over the Centaur Hotel in Srinagar to the state government as top officials of the state are going to ink the process Monday in New Delhi with the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

The top officials including Chief Secretary of the state B V R Subramanium, Commissioner Secretary Tourism Rigzin Samphel and officials of the Finance department are holding deliberations with the Ministry of Civil Aviation in New Delhi to complete the procedural formalities for hand and take over on Monday.

Sources in the government told a news agency the meeting is scheduled on Monday morning where the handover and takeover of Centaur Hotel will formally take place.

Recently in a press conference at SKICC, Governor Satya Pal Malik had said that Centaur Hotel will be handed over back to state control soon.

Sources said that once the state government takes back the control and management of the Centaur Hotel, it is likely to be handed over to Taj Vivanata owners along with the employees of the Centaur hotel.

However, the employees of the Centaur hotel say that the state government has not yet communicated to them about their future. (KNS)

Srinagar, June 16: Governor Satya Pal Malik has greeted people on the auspicious occasion of Kabir Jayanti.

In his message of felicitations, Governor observed that the writings of Saint Kabir continue to inspire generations to work for a harmonious society which is based on equality and social justice and his teachings inspire us to live as better human beings by shunning greed, hatred and pride.

Governor prayed for peace, progress and prosperity in the State.