Recruitment of jail wardens restarts

Amritsar, May 9
After the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court (HC) to restart the recruitment process for the 527 posts of jail warden/matron, the Police Commissionerate, Amritsar, today held a physical fitness test of the applicants. There were 226 applicants from Amritsar for the job of jail warden, who passed the physical efficiency test in 2012.
Senior police officials said 165 applicants, out of 226, appeared for the test and their fitness report has been prepared, which would be sent to the headquarters in Chandigarh for the further process of recruitment.
It is worth mentioning here that the state government had issued an advertisement in October 2011 to recruit 527 jail wardens. The recruitment process had started in 2012 and physical efficiency test was conducted.
Meanwhile, IPS officer Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh recommended the cancellation of the recruitment process as rules were
reportedly amended before advertising the posts. The government had canceled the recruitment process midway.
The candidates, who had cleared the physical test, approached the court in 2014 and challenged the decision of the government. In December 2016, the HC had quashed the Punjab government’s decision to cancel the process for recruiting jail warders and ordered it to start the procedure again.
A large number of candidates, who had earlier cleared the physical efficiency test, were absent from the recruitment process. Police officials say the absentees may have taken up some other job.
Meanwhile, the candidates were elated with the beginning of the recruitment process after five years. “We are waiting for the job for the past seven years. We struggled a lot for this and never gave up. Now, we are expecting the recruitment process to conclude within a few days,” said a recruit.