Modi urges states to fill up vacant jobs

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By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi, June 17: After ordering recruitment for 10 lakh jobs in the government in the next 18 months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday told the state chief secretaries to identify existing vacancies and fill them up.

Modi’s nudge to the chief secretaries to prioritize filling up the vacancies in the state departments came on the concluding day of the brainstorming session in Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh.

“Urging that all vacancies across state government departments must be filled, the Prime Minister said the states must identify such vacancies under each sector and fill them,” said the Prime Minister’s Office in an official statement.

Modi’s exhortation to the state governments has come at a time when the youth unrest turned into storm in several places across the country during the protests against the Agnipath scheme for recruitment of 46000 personnel in the Armed forces for four years duration.

A number of states continue to sit on growing number of vacancies in their departments, including education, health, transport and others.

The states, incidentally, aren’t keen to fill up the vacancies on account of the poor financials while seeking to avoid the normal; recruitments which may result in the pension and other liabilities.

Some of the states have resorted to hiring contractual teachers and doctors despite adverse impact on the education and healthcare.

The Centre had called the Dharamshala meeting to sensitize the states for the emerging challenges in the socio-economic space in the run up to the Governing Council meeting of the NITI Aayog, which is likely to take place next month in the national capital.

The visible urgency on the part of the Modi government to step up the government recruitment is apparently seen amid the grim outlook of the economy while the inflation-induced interest rate hikes threaten to send the private investments in the hibernation for a long time, which could put pressure on the job creation in the country.

The national conference of chief secretaries, chaired by the Prime Minister, concluded on Friday, which was attended by several officials, including district collectors and magistrates from the states and union territories, as well as the Union ministries.

“On the third day, sessions on improving access to and quality of higher education and enhancing urban governance through urban planning and municipal finance were held. Discussions were also held on the need for greater Centre-state coordination for ensuring the saturation of government schemes and last-mile delivery and capacity building of civil servants through Mission Karamayogi,” added the PMO in the official statement.