Editor,
This letter is in response to the article published on 18 January, 2021, on the front page of The Arunachal Times, titled ‘Towards fair appointment to public service commission’.
In view of the points put forward through such relevant write up, the authors here felt that we should be thankful to the media house for publication of such news article, which acts as a whistleblower with regard to such pertinent and sensitive issue. Such acts are extremely important in our current self-centric transitional society.
As concerned citizens of the state, it is felt that there should be tribal inclusive, impartial and fair recruitment for the appointment of member(s) of APPSC.
The government of Arunachal Pradesh must consider certain criteria in screening/selection and appointment of the incumbent for the coveted post in the constitutional body of the state. Some of the inclusive elements must be: (1) Good educational background, (2) Equal gender representation to the commission as adopted by most of the northeastern states in India, (3) Equal representation of all APST communities of Arunachal Pradesh, as the list of incumbency of the APPSC, both present and past, speaks of inclusion of only few communities of the state, (4)Having clean service record and experience, (5) Representation of incumbent of various fields instead of specific field like the army, etc, as seen in the state in of previous appointment, (6) The APPSC requires focused efforts to overcome all such drawbacks of commission’s working pattern as we witnessed certain dark shades of the commission facing several legal hurdles in the past in regard to conduct of exams, result declaration, appointments, etc, there is the inevitable requirement of appointment of incumbent with legal knowledge and degree, (7) Most importantly, past history reflects that the appointment of many such members of Arunachal Public Service Commission were recruited from outside the state, (8) The state government should appoint someone who will be there to stay in the commission for the complete 6 year tenure/term at least, thereby by saving time and resource of the state government, especially in the whole exercise of appointment of member/s to the commission, (9) Further, do lots of expectation from the screening committee for inclusive, free and fair selection process for recruiting APPSC member.
Today we have sufficient potentials in our own native state of Arunachal Pradesh who are young, knowledgeable, energetic, having the zeal to work, and are well informed with ample knowledge on working of the community. We also need to ponder on the prime ministers’ flagship slogan of ‘Vocal for local’ that must be a priority.
Therefore, we strongly feel that the above observation and suggestions are the voice of the people of the state and very correctly the said press news item published by The Arunachal Times lamented on keeping the eyes open and the issue of social budgeting of the issue is a complete truth.
Kiri Taso, Pritam Killo, Charu Kojum
Mene Bagang and Raju Keyang