Central govt recruitment up sharply in 2003-04

Jobs offered in various grades jump 32% in a single year

After a two-year lull induced by the report of the Expenditure Reform Commission, recruitment to different central government departments have again picked up sharply.

This is evident from the numbers being recruited by the Staff Selection Commission and the Union Public Service Commission, the Centre's two most important recruitment bodies.

According to these, there has been an almost 32 per cent rise in the number of people who have been offered employment in the various grades of central government service in 2003-04 compared with the figure in 2002-03.

Simultaneously, there has been almost no drop in the recruitment by the various Railway Recruitment Boards. Railway Minister, Nitish Kumar hasd already announced plans to create 5,000 additional Group D posts every year. Besides, families of all technical railway employees like engine drivers, who retire through VRS, will get a compassionate recruitment in the department.

As the table shows, the pace of recruitment at the Centre, especially to the lower grades of government employment have dramatically picked up, more than doubling in the past two fiscal. Government sources said they are planning to recruit at about the same level in 2004-05.

According to the sources, this is expected to partially counter the criticism of jobless growth being faced by the ruling coalition. It has also realised the potential of losing sizable votes of families for any of their members getting a pink slip.

Instead, the Centre has given a green signal for lifting restrictions on all sorts of recruitment, including those which are filled on a bi-yearly basis like clerk's grade examination, conducted by the Staff Selection Commission. The only drop has been in recruitment like the civil service examinations.

Moreover the interdepartmental screening committees, instituted by former finance minister Yashwant Sinha, comprising of representatives of the concerned departments and the department of personnel and training, have been asked to clear all proposals to fill up vacancies, coming from various departments promptly.

The committees had been set up in the wake of the report of the ERC, to weed out posts. Any proposal for fresh recruitment by any department initially travels to these committees, which evaluate them, axing those which remain pending for more than a year.

Besides they also explore filling up a post, by redeployment of staff from other departments. To make the government departments undergo an hair cut, in his budget for 2001-02, Sinha had envisaged that for every three people retiring from government, only one should be filled up.

To reduce the size of the over 5.5 million Central government staff, including those in uniformed service, the ERC had suggested a multi pronged plan to reduce government employment, which accounts for almost nine per cent of the Centre's expenditure. It had also asked for elimination of 42,000 posts.