THIRUVANANATHAPURAM: Resentment is brewing among a section of NORKA-Roots employees over an alleged move to entrust the charge of overseas recruitment of nurses with a group of freshly appointed contract staff, even as serious allegations have already surfaced over the recruitment.
Some of the officials have even approached the court challenging the fresh appointments. According to sources, Nirupama Mary Thomas, who has been recently appointed as the recruitment manager in NORKA-Roots, is the daughter of a former Congress leader from Pathanamthitta.
M.B. Reshmi, who has been appointed as one of the assistant managers, was a former Congress councillor of Kamalesawaram ward in Thiruvananthapuram corporation. Other recent appointments are also under a cloud.
Sources said that there was a move to entrust the responsibility of overseas recruitment of nurses to these new contract staff. Initially, there were allegations regarding overseas recruitment of nurses by NORKA-Roots and the matter had even come up in the Assembly.
Following the allegations, a new team of NORKA-Roots officials was entrusted with the responsibility of overseas recruitment. At present, there is a move to shift the responsibility from them and hand it over to the team led by Nirupama.
“Even the responsibility of directly dealing with foreign employers, which has been so far restricted to top officials of the organisation, is being entrusted to the new team of contract staff. This raises serious suspicions of ulterior motives, especially since the NORKA-Roots is entitled to collect service charge of Rs. 20,000 from foreign employers for each candidates recruited,” sources said.
NORKA-Roots chief executive officer R.S. Kannan was not available for comments.
