BHUBANESWAR: With over 1.32 lakh posts lying vacant in different departments, the state government is all set to start Nijukti Mela (job fair) in September to keep its promise to fill up 65,000 posts in two years.
Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi will distribute appointment letters to 22,000 recruits through an employment drive to be launched in the last week of September. A decision in this regard was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Majhi recently.
After abolition of 75 per cent of the base-level vacant posts, the sanctioned posts in the government are around 3,99,666. Of these sanctioned posts, 1,32,459 are lying vacant.
The empowered committee has given its approval for recruitment to 92,203 vacant posts and departments concerned have been advised to conduct required tests and interviews for 78,919 posts in a transparent manner, official sources said.
Necessary instructions have been issued to all departments to advertise the posts inviting application from eligible candidates for recruitment by the end of December, the sources added.
In its election manifesto, the BJP had promised to fill up 1.5 lakh vacant government posts. “We will ensure recruitment to 1.5 lakh vacant government posts fairly and transparently. Recruitment for 65,000 posts will be completed in two years. We will fill the vacancies for Other Backward Class (OBC) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) on a priority basis,” the BJP manifesto stated.
The party also promised to launch a drive to fill up the vacant posts reserved for ex-servicemen and incentivise private industries to employ local youth in all unskilled and semi-skilled positions in their organisations.
Going through a financial crisis, the state government had first resorted to banning recruitment in 1999 and then initiated measures to abolish 10 per cent of the sanctioned posts from 2002 onward on the diktat of the World Bank and Department for International Development (DFID).
Subsequently, in 2004, the state government abolished 75 per cent of the base-level vacant posts and all the recruitment was made on contractual basis which has been continuing till date.