GILGIT, Jan 25: A large number of candidates for admission in professional colleges and universities alleged on Wednesday that transparency was not being observed in the nomination on the quota of Northern Areas.

They said that under a decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the regional quota in professional colleges could be availed by those candidates who had taken their school and college exams at institutions in their native areas.

They said the quota was not available to the domicile-holders who had acquired their prerequisite qualification in other areas.

Sources close to the nomination board here said that the SC judgment was being followed in the provinces and AJK but in Northern Areas the education authorities were helpless before the pressure mounted by the elite and government officials.

They said that influential people and high-ranking government officials were either settled in cities outside NAs or had got their children admitted in institutions there.

A majority of them used the quota reserved for Northern Areas, depriving the students of the local institutions, the sources said.

They said that some candidates had never been to their native areas but possessed domicile of Northern Areas to avail the quota for admissions and jobs.

Another source said that the Balti speaking people who migrated to Karachi from Simla and Ladakh had also been utilizing the NAs quota.

Sources said that the non-implementation of state subject rules in Northern Areas had helped a large number of non-local people obtain domiciles.

An education department official told Dawn that the department had started following the SC ruling but some people had filed petitions in courts and provoked protest.