Jammu, Jan 9: There is no end to the wait of over twelve hundred youth waiting for the release of selection list of wardens in the Prison Department – the process for which was started more than seven years back.
 Sources said that Jammu and Kashmir Prisons department   failed to finalize the selection list for the wardens, the process for which was started in August 2005, while twelve hundred candidates, who qualified the written examination two years back are waiting for the list to come out.
 Pertinently, on August 8, 2005 the prison department advertised 73 vacancies of wardens with notification mentioning that the number of vacancies would be increased with the passage of time. Forty thousand youth of state applied for 73 posts and after five years twelve hundred candidates were short listed following physical, outdoor and written tests in December 2010.       
 However even after two years, the twelve hundred short listed youth are waiting for formal appointment letters, despite the department admitting that it was facing huge shortage of staff in all the prisons.
 Ghulam Nabi, one of the aspirant said that they have lost eight precious years in the selection process , but even  after the lapse  of two years  since the completion of the  process , the department has failed to declare the final selection list  
 The aggrieved aspirants said that they also approached chief minister and appealed him to intervene but he also did nothing to resolve the issue.
  “The government has been hoodwinking us as the  minister of state for  Home  is  saying that   the file  was lying with    CM  office, , while  the  Director General (DG)   prison   told us that the qualified candidates would be called   for the retest”, he rued and added “We will not appear in retests, we have already wasted our precious 8 years”. 
 When contacted DG   Prison department Naveen Agarwal said that the final list was delayed because the Prison department Selection board has not approved the test of the candidates as they could not visits all centers where the test was held.
 The board has decided to re-conduct the written test for those candidates who had already qualified physical and outdoor tests. “Board will shortly conduct a meeting to decide the date for retest” he said.
  However, he said that the department was facing shortage of staff and selection of  these candidates would greatly help in meeting the dearth.  

Lastupdate on : Wed, 9 Jan 2013 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 9 Jan 2013 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 10 Jan 2013 00:00:00 IST