Dimapur: Nagaland’s Lok Sabha MP S Supongmeren Jamir on Wednesday raised concerns in the Lok Sabha over severe staff shortages in central broadcasting institutions in the state.
Speaking under Rule 377, Jamir highlighted that long-standing recruitment issues have prevented eligible candidates from Nagaland from securing positions through the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) examinations.
He referred to the Employment News/Rozgar Samachar notification dated March 23, 2013, in which the SSC had advertised 15 vacancies for programme executive and transmission executive (production assistant) posts in Doordarshan and All India Radio in Nagaland. However, no candidates from the state qualified, primarily due to the Hindi Paper-II requirement, which created a significant barrier for local aspirants.
Jamir detailed the scale of vacancies in Nagaland’s public broadcasting institutions: out of 144 sanctioned posts in Doordarshan Kendra, Kohima, 89 remain vacant; in the programme section of AIR Kohima, 64 of 79 posts are vacant; in the administrative section of AIR, 56 of 90 posts are unfilled; and in the engineering section, 50 of 91 sanctioned posts remain empty.
He stressed that such widespread vacancies are severely affecting the functioning and outreach of public broadcasting services, which are critical for information dissemination, cultural preservation, and regional representation.
To address the issue, Jamir urged the concerned ministry to consider a special recruitment drive for Nagaland, including the relaxation of the Hindi requirement and conducting Paper I and II in English. He emphasised that this would ensure equal opportunities for qualified local youth.
Jamir reaffirmed that recruitment policies must be inclusive and sensitive to the linguistic realities of the Northeast, ensuring that deserving candidates are not denied opportunities due to language barriers unrelated to job performance.