by Khalid Bashir Gura
SRINAGAR: After the elected government crumbled under its won weight, the government halted the process of hiring people. The long lull broke when the JKSSB Panchayat Accounts Assistant examination was held on November 10 for 1,889 vacancies for the 2020 recruitment programme. As many as 1, 64,055 candidates had appeared for the OMR based exam.
The candidates who qualified in the exam will now be appointed for or District Cadre Posts of Accounts Assistant (Panchayat) in the Department of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj under provisions of Jammu & Kashmir’s SO.
In the recently conducted Panchayat Accounts Assistant exams conducted by Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection Board (JKSSB), Abdul Shakoor Itoo, 24, a resident of South Kashmir’s Anantnag emerged topper in the open merit category by scoring 107.25 points out of 120.
On December 25, evening when JKSSB declared the results, ecstatic Itoo rushed to his mother to break the news. It was a reprieve for his mother Masooda, who nurtured and brought him up through thick and thin and enabled him to continue his education after she lost her husband, Manzoor Ahmad Itoo.
“I lost my father when I was in 5th class. We were supported by relatives as we have a joint family.” Itoo said.
Continuing with his education, and after scoring well in 10th choose science subjects. After passing 12th from a nearby Government Higher Secondary School, he appeared in JKCET. In 2014 he was selected for civil engineering at IUST but due to some reasons had to quit. Subsequently, Itoo changed his subjects from science to social science and completed his bachelors through distance mode from Kashmir University due to financial issues. “I was not much interested in science subjects,” he said. “I completed my graduation in four years from 2014-2018.” After completing graduation I was preparing for civil services but not with serious thought.
As lakhs of highly qualified candidates were in competition for the posts, Itoo said he was expecting to qualify after his meticulous preparation of four months.
Preparing for almost 8-9 hours every day, he started of giving serious thought to exams after submitting the form. “I started serious preparation for the exam a few months before. From July onwards I started preparing. I had a strong aptitude for mathematics as it had been my subject in higher school. It made the preparation easy. I studied NCERT 11th, 12th for accountancy and also basic books for economics. For the rest I prepared with the help of the internet,” he said. “In order to keep myself updated with monthly updates, I studied a small GK booklet. Accountancy was the deciding factor in qualifying this exam and I worked hard to clear concepts as it has never been my subject.”
There is no substitute to hard work whether the goals are big or small, he said. “One needs to be dedicated,” he said.
As one cannot be always on books, Itoo, to break the boredom used to rush to bat and bowl, “When bored I used to rush to play cricket,” he said.
