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Aspirants demand increase in age limit in J&K Bank recruitment drive
J&K higher and school education minister Shamim Firdous termed the 30-year age limit unfair, citing the lack of major recruitment drives in recent years
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Years after Jammu and Kashmir Bank announced a major recruitment drive to fill 1,356 vacant posts of probationary officers (PO) and banking associates, students across J&K are demanding an increase in the upper age limit to 40 years for open merit candidates, instead of the 30 years set by the bank.
J&K higher and school education minister Shamim Firdous termed the 30-year age limit unfair, citing the lack of major recruitment drives in recent years. The J&K Students Association (JKSA) has also written to lieutenant governor (LG) Manoj Sinha, requesting an increase in the age limit to 40 years.
Last week, J&K Bank, which is the Union territory’s biggest bank, announced recruitment for 1,356 probationary officer and banking associate posts, with the recruitment process starting on November 7. The vacancies include 323 posts for probationary officers and 1,033 posts for banking associates, with 30 years as the upper age limit for open merit and economically weaker section (EWS) candidates.
Firdous, while talking to media on the sidelines of an official function, said, “As we know that there has been no major recruitment in the past years in J&K-neither by J&K Bank or by any other place. Our youth have become ‘over aged’ for recruitments. The age limit of 30 years is very less and it should be 40 years.” She said she will raise the issue with J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah.
In a letter written to the LG, JKSA expressed serious concern over the upper age limit prescribed in J&K Bank’s latest recruitment notification.
The association has urged the LG to intervene and take up the matter with the J&K Bank management and other competent authorities in the larger interest of J&K’s educated unemployed youth.
Zubair Reshi, national spokesperson of the JKSA, said that while the announcement of fresh recruitment after a prolonged gap of nearly six years is a welcome development, restricting the upper age limit to 30 years has left thousands of eligible and deserving aspirants disappointed and effectively excluded from an opportunity they have waited years to pursue.
He said that the recruitment process must take into account the extraordinary delay in announcing vacancies and the ground realities confronting educated youth in J&K. “Thousands of candidates have spent years preparing for banking examinations, investing considerable time, resources and effort, only to find themselves rendered ineligible because of an age restriction that fails to account for the prolonged recruitment gap,” he said.
The association particularly highlighted that the upper age limit for PO posts in the previous J&K Bank recruitment was 32 years, whereas the latest notification has reduced it to 30 years. “This reduction, coupled with the nearly six-year gap since the previous recruitment cycle, has further compounded the difficulties of aspirants who have lost valuable years waiting for fresh employment opportunities,” the association said.
