High-octane drama prevailed outside the Secretariat complex on Wednesday throughout the day after a PSC rank holder climbed up a tree and threatened to commit suicide. Christopher, a native of Nedumangad, threatened to kill himself unless the government took a call on the inordinate delay in appointments for the post of KSRTC reserve drivers. The police and Fire and Rescue Services personnel were kept on their toes at the spot throughout the day.

Though Christopher was accompanied by a group of rank holders to stage protest in front of Secretariat at 9.30 am, he started climbing up a tree. He sat high up on a branch of the tree for nearly 10 hours. This is the second time that he is adopting this method to gain attention from the authorities. One year ago, he had climbed up a tree on the same spot for the same need. The other protesters had raised slogans against the government on the road and they demanded immediate intervention from the Transport Ministry for resolving their long-standing issue. The protesters also said that the list was out in 2013 and it would expire in two months. However, he climbed down around 8.05 pm after  KSRTC Executive Director K M Sreekumar arrived at the spot and talked to the protesters.

Sreekumar promised the protesters that the date of expiry of the list would be extended to six months and the issue would be addressed within a month. One of the rank holders, Sajeev, had earlier in the day told ‘Express’ that the government had deceived thousands of rank holders a year ago after giving them an assurance of speeding up the recruitment process. ” When we staged a similar protest a a year ago, District Collector Biju Prabhakar had promised to resolve the issue soon. But nothing has turned out positive”, Sajeev said.

He also pointed out that the government was paving the way for backdoor appointments after taking the candidates through M-panel. In the meeting convened by the collector a year ago, the executive director (technical) had said that PSC had notified for reporting around 3,388 vacancies and 3,390 had been appointed through the PSC list. In JNNRUM buses, around 1,200 vacancies would be reported soon and the rank holders would be selected accordingly.

In 2015, a total of 718 vacancies had been reported and no appointments had been made yet. But on the other hand, the rank holders alleged that several candidates had been reported through the KSRTC M-panel.

News Source :  The New Indian Express

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