CHANDIGARH: The Haryana government is currently struggling to carry out the recruitment of Class-4 employees in the government departments, boards and corporations in the state. The issue of under-staffing is so serious, out of a total of 77,370, only about 43,000-odd posts are filled up. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has been keen on filling up the pending posts through the Haryana Staff Selection Commission, and is learnt to have voiced his view in meetings, including those with his cabinet colleagues.
With the number of vacancies going up, the government has done little to finalise a "workable" recruitment policy. The reason is cited as a lack of unanimity in the state government on the mode of recruitment. A senior minister had announced last week that the government would recruit 50,000 employees on contract, instead of through contracts under its outsourcing policy to accelerate the pace of administrative work. The option of recruitment on contract under the outsourcing policy has been available for the past few years, but it is fraught with problems.
Another reason is the problem of plenty and the lack of competency. An IAS officer said, "Wherever the departments or other government organisations advertise posts and invite applications, they get large number of applications and lack the competency to handle such selection processes." Citing an instance, the directorate of school education had invited applications for 2,900 posts of peon, gardener, chowkidar and waterman in government schools and district offices in April 2016. Over 556,000 aspirants sent in their applications in response for contractual appointment for one year. The department, overwhelmed with the sheer number of applicants, remained undecided on the selection procedure.
The present outsourcing policy, that deals with services through service providers and direct hiring by departments on contract against regular sanctioned posts, was finalised in February 2009. The government has continued with the policy with minor amendments from time to time.
