There has been no recruitment in gazetted posts in Ladakh since it became a Union Territory in 2019 and 78 of the 80 contract lecturer posts in the University of Ladakh were filled by outsiders, a fact-finding report has found.
A delegation of the National Alliance of People’s Movements, Hum Bharat ke Log and Socialist Party (India) had visited Srinagar, Kargil and Leh between September 10 and 14 to meet political and religious leaders and prepared the fact-finding report.
“The entire upper echelon of the administration is composed of bureaucrats from outside, who often treat their posting as a punishment, making the establishment of a Ladakh Public Service Commission an urgent and non-negotiable demand for administrative justice and self-determination,” the report said.
“The systematic sidelining of locals is further evidenced by the chilling fact that there have been no new appointments at gazetted posts for the past six years in Ladakh,” it added.
The demand for Ladakh’s own public service commission was also raised by climate activist Sonam Wangchuk, Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance.
In the education sector, the report found that “out of 80 contract lecturer posts recently filled at the University of Ladakh, 78 were given to outsiders from the plains, blatantly bypassing highly qualified local PhD holders, including a scholar from Banaras Hindu University and another from Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti University in Lucknow”.
Demanding full statehood and Sixth Schedule status for Ladakh, the report claimed that it was not a mere
political aspiration but an absolute necessity for democratic survival.