Meeting a long-pending demand of educated unemployed youth in Telangana, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Wednesday, March 9, announced the filling up of 91,142 vacancies in government departments. Making a much-awaited statement in the Legislative Assembly, he declared that notifications will be issued immediately to fill 80,039 vacancies. He also announced that all 11,103 current contract employees will be regularised. Hereafter, there will be no contract appointments system in the state, he said amid thumping of desks by the legislators.
KCR, as the Chief Minister is popularly known, said as a result of these recruitments, there will be an additional financial implication of Rs 7,000 crore per annum. Nevertheless, the government has taken this decision to go ahead with the recruitments, he said.
He also announced that the upper age limit would be relaxed for recruitments by 10 years. Upper age limit for candidates belonging to Other Caste (OCs) will now be 44 years. For Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Backward Classes (BCs), the new upper age limit will be 49 years. The same will be 54 years for differently abled.
Of 80,039 vacancies to be filled, 18,334 are in the Home Department, 13,086 in Secondary Education, 12,755 in Medical, Health and Family Welfare, 7,878 in Higher Education, 4,311 in Backward Classes Welfare, 3,560 in the Revenue Department and the remaining in 21 other departments. He said the government has also decided that henceforth, vacancies will be identified in advance and an annual calendar for recruitments will be published and recruitments will be taken up in a transparent manner.
KCR recalled that the slogan of Telangana movement was water, funds and appointments. "After the formation of the state, the funds of Telangana are available to Telangana itself. We are constructing irrigation projects as per the requirements of Telangana," he said.
With the amendment to the Presidential Order due to the efforts of the Telangana government, local candidates will get 95% reservation in government employment from the lowest cadre of attendant to the highest cadre of Revenue Division Officer (RDO), KCR told the House claiming that Telangana is the only state in the entire country to achieve this.
The government also created seven new zones comprising all 33 districts. Due to taking up recruitment in the seven zonal and 33 district cadres, the problems of vacant posts and shortage of staff in the remote areas of the state will be resolved, KCR said.
He explained the measures taken by the state government after the formation of the new state to improve the administration. He said a total of 1,12,307 new posts were sanctioned. Along with this, the government identified the vacant posts and decided to fill up 1,56,254 posts. Till now 1,33,942 posts have been filled-up, he said.
The announcement came a day after dozens of unemployed youth and students were detained at the campus of the Osmania University for taking out a rally and demanding an announcement on job notifications and unemployment pensions, as the TRS had promised before the 2018 Assembly elections.
Arjun Nayak, OU JAC Chairman, who was detained by police near Lakdikapul Metro Rail Station for trying to halt the CM’s convoy said that he resorted to protest as he was fed up with the government's negligence of unemployed youths in the state. “Due to the undue delay in filling up vacancies in all the government departments, a generation of unemployed youth is losing their careers. It has been eight years since the state was bifurcated, but except few police jobs, panchayat secretary, and some group two cadre posts, there has been no major notification from the state on jobs,” Arjun had said.
With IANS inputs