GUWAHATI, Oct 6 - In a somewhat piquant development, the candidatures of the diploma holders from the Assam Textile Institute for the posts of Technical Superintendent (Weaving and Processing), have been rejected by the Ministry of Textiles on the ground that the diploma course offered by the institute is named only as �Diploma in Textile Technology�, and not as �Handloom� or �Handloom and Textile Technology�.
This is despite the fact that the course offered by the Textile Institute here includes handloom also as a subject and it is approved by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE).
The Ministry reasons that the recruitment rules for such posts are subordinate legislation and so they are statutory in nature. The old recruitment rules in respect of the post of Technical Superintendent (Weaving and Processing) were amended with the prior approval of the Department of Personnel and Training, Union Public Service Commission and the Ministry of Law and Justice and finally notified in the Gazette of India on April 16, 2014 and thereby have attained the force of law from the date of the notification in the Gazette.
In the absence of any provisions in statutory rules for recruitment to the post of Technical Superintendent (Weaving) in Weavers� Service Centre, �Diploma in Textile Technology� cannot be treated as equivalent to Diploma in Handloom Technology or Handloom and Textile Technology.
The same provisions exist in the recruitment rules for the post of Technical Superintendents (Processing) and Textile Designer, said the Director (EZ) for Handlooms Weavers� Service Centre of the Ministry of Textiles in his letter dated August 31, 2015 (No WSC/GAU/Admn.1 (4)/1352.
This stand of the Ministry of Textiles is depriving the pass-outs from the Assam Textile Institute from securing the above-mentioned Central government jobs. The students of the institute want the State government to take speedy steps to solve the problem.
The institute�s textile technology intake capacity is 30 per semester, fashion technology per semester 20 and garment technology per semester 20. On an average 60 students pass out every six months from this institute and of them around 25 are from the textile technology branch. All the courses are three-year diploma courses.