BENGALURU: In a candid admission before the House, the Siddaramaiah government on Tuesday admitted what citizens already feel every day - Karnataka is governed by a skeletal staff. A staggering 2.8 lakh sanctioned posts lie vacant, crippling public services from classrooms to hospitals.
The numbers laid bare are brutal. The primary education department has a jaw-dropping 79,600 vacancies – the single biggest black hole. The health and medical education department has 37,000 posts vacant, while in the higher education department, 13,600 posts of lecturers are unfilled.
The animal husbandry department has 11,000 posts vacant, while the unfilled posts in backward classes welfare department is 8,500, finance department 7,600, law and human rights department 7,600, agriculture department 6,800, forest department 6,400, DPAR 6,000, cooperation department 4,700 and women and child development department 3,300.
That is nearly three lakh ghost posts in a state that loves to boast about its “model governance”. The Opposition accused the Congress government of “negligence” for children taught by guest teachers, patients turned away from understaffed hospitals and farmers left without extension officers, while the government splurges on guarantees.
The ministers are offering the usual excuses – “recruitment is in process”, “KPSC delays”, “budget constraints” – but the truth is that Karnataka has been advertising “permanent jobs” for years while quietly running the state on contract and outsourced staff. With the next Assembly elections just two years away, the government appears to have handed the Opposition its sharpest weapon.