The alleged deprivation of promotions and disparity in wages of local officers of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep, all of them belonging to Scheduled Tribe, is set to be raised in Lok Sabha during the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament. Lakshadweep MP and NCP leader Faizal Mohammed has approached Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh complaining that the lack of proportional representation of people from Lakshadweep in Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli Civil Service (DANICS) has impacted the developmental activities of the island.

Talking to BusinessLine, Mohammed said the Home Minister has assured him that the matter will be taken up seriously. “I hope the Centre rectifies the anomalies at the earliest,” he said and added that he will also meet Speaker Sumitra Mahajan so that the issue can be discussed in Lok Sabha.

Letter to Modi

“Despite working in tough island conditions and performing multifarious duties in comparison with their counterparts in Delhi, they have been placed at lower pay scales just for the reason that they belong to Scheduled Tribes,” Mohammed said in a letter to Modi.

He demanded the Centre to provide higher pay scales in parity with the government officials in Delhi. “There are no locally recruited civil service officers from the island. The role of the State Civil Service is being performed by DANICS officers since 1995. Usually, the junior most entry cadre DANICS official gets a posting in Lakshadweep, and due to lack of experience, such officers shy away from taking crucial decisions. This has an impact on the development of Lakshadweep,” Mohammed said.

He said though local officers are also eligible for promotion to DANICS none of them were given such an opportunity so far. “This is an unfair bias against the tribal officials of the island,” he added. “There is an urgent requirement to amend the DANICS rules in such a way so that local officers of Lakshadweep can also be given proportional representation in DANICS,” the MP said.

Mohammed reminded Modi in the letter that State civil services were established according to the concept of ‘sons of the soil’ to give an opportunity to the local officers to contribute for the development of the area. “We hope that the Centre will consider our request,” Mohammed added.

During a recent meeting with the Home Minister, Mohammed has also conveyed that local officers of Delhi are being promoted against vacancies in DANICS and are also posted in Lakshadweep, which is being resisted by local officers in the island.

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