To woo masses, govt may offer 1.13 lakh jobs

Jaswinder Singh Baidwan

Akhran da mureed
Staff member
The SAD-BJP government is all set to woo the masses by filling up almost 1.13 lakh vacancies in various government departments in the coming months. This will be a major recruitment drive to be launched by the government ever since there was an unofficial ban on recruiting regular employees in the government.
It is learnt that the issue of recruiting 1.13 lakh persons in various departments like education, power, personnel and health will be taken up for discussion among the ministers, during the Cabinet meeting scheduled for Thursday.
The maximum posts have to be filled in the Education Department (40,000 posts, including in higher education), followed by Power Department, Personnel and Health Departments.
Under pressure
Sources say the government for long had been contemplating starting a recruitment drive in the state in order to woo the people. The immediate need for pushing this agenda was felt now, in wake of over two months of protests — by farmer organisations and Sikh activisits – which brought the state government on its knees. Since, initially the government felt it could not bear the additional burden of salaries of people, they had decided to do away with the policy of granting two years extension in service to the employees after their superannuation.
However, it was decided that only around 5,000 vacancies could be filled in case the recruitment was to be made against posts of employees on extension in service.
The state government is already spending 65 per cent of its total revenue receipts (income) on the payment of salaries and wages to its employees, leaving little space for it to carry on development works. But considering the ‘larger gains’, the government has decided to undertake recruitment in a major way. Almost all departments were asked to submit the vacancies, which will now be filled (if approved by the Cabinet) in a phased manner.
Unemployment among the state’s youth has been at an all-time high - mainly because of virtually no fresh recruitments in government jobs and poor economic growth stunting the employment opportunities in private sector.
 
Top