Srinagar, 29 June (H.S.): Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Iltija Mufti today questioned the J&K Government over the outsourcing of jobs to private companies, alleging that hundreds of crores of public money were being spent without transparency and demanding that all outsourcing contracts and recruitment details be made public.

In a post on 'X', Iltija asked why Government jobs were being outsourced instead of being filled through a transparent and merit-based recruitment process.

She sought to know which private companies had been selected, the procedure adopted for their empanelment, and the basis on which manpower was being recruited.

Our simple questions to the J&K Government are: Why are hundreds of crores being spent on outsourcing jobs to private companies? Who selected these companies and what was the selection process? On what basis are people being recruited without a transparent merit-based process? Will the Government make these contracts and recruitment details public? she said.

To support her allegations, Iltija released what she described as official documents detailing outsourcing arrangements across several Government departments.

The documents list the departments concerned, the number of outsourced personnel, names and addresses of private outsourcing agencies, contract amounts and the number of jobs outsourced during the past two years.

According to the documents, outsourcing contracts have been awarded across multiple departments, including School Education, Health and Medical Education, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Forests, Rural Development, Transport, Tourism, Revenue, Social Welfare, Higher Education, Finance, Election, Labour and Employment, Information, Estates and Skill Development, among others.

Iltija alleged that the practice had expanded significantly across Government departments and demanded that the administration place the contracts, selection criteria and recruitment process in the public domain to ensure accountability and transparency.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Krishan Kumar