KAS: Govt firm on quota stance; concerns not addresed

Thiruvananthapuram: The government is getting ready to issue the final notification about what is going to be the backbone of the state's civil service – Kerala Administrative Service (KAS), sticking to its stance of denying community reservation to aspirants for a large segment of KAS jobs.

KAS consists of three streams of recruitment, of which two are going to be made without any reservation, as per the latest government decision. This has been causing great concern among candidates from backward communities.

s per the KAS structure, one third of vacancies are to be filled via PSC under open selection and two thirds will come from candidates in government service. For the second stream, recruitment will be from general category, based on written test and interview. Although the draft notification had envisaged reservation, by the time the final notification is made, things are turning upside down.

Law Secretary is learnt to have advised the government that in the absence of reservation, backward communities will not have adequate representation, and therefore, reservation has to be guaranteed for the second stream. The rpeort of Law secretary had mentioned that if any one in government service now wishes to avail the benefit of reservation, he will have to resign from service and compete in the first open stream, and this provision won't have the slightest support of law in the court. However, the government has not paid any heed to this advice.

The government position is that because two out of three posts in KAS are via promotion, if reservation is allowed for them, it will amount to allowing reservation twice. The sections affected by this will be, in additdion to scheduled castes, backward communities like Muslim, Ezhava, Latin Catholica, Viswakarma and OBC's.

Regarding schedules castes, bodies including CPM-sponsored Scheduled Caste Welfare Council, had demanded that reservation should be offered to them in all the streams. It is in total disregard of all these aspects and demands that the government has given approval to amend rules governing the syllabus and examination pattern of KAS.