SURAJ NANDREKAR
suraj@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The Manohar Parrikar-led government appears to be on a hiring spree as several advertisements for recruitments in government departments have been released.
But with the State already under financial stress, and government borrowing to pay salaries of existing staff, is the move justified? Besides, the government decision of recruiting would incur an additional expense of Rs 120 cr annually.
A top official in the government told Herald that the High Level Empowered Committee (HLEC) has cleared 3000 vacancies including those in the Police Department.
HLEC clearing 3000 jobs means a huge stress on the State’s finances. The officer said that on an average the salary of a government employee is Rs 36,000. “Just multiply this number with 3000 and you will find the amount to be whopping Rs 120 cr,” he stated.
Goa already has the highest ratio of government employees to citizens in the country. Goa employs 58,008 people, to be precise. For a State with a population of 14,58,544 (as per 2011 census), this figure signifies that 1:25 persons in Goa have a government job – or to put it in another way, there is a government servant for every 25 citizens in this State. This should raise eyebrows, because it is the highest figure in the country.
Though the precedent of political appointments goes back many years, the Parrikar government has allegedly been on an overdrive in filling up government posts.
With elections round the corner, the BJP does not want past mistakes to be repeated. Ahead of the 2017 elections, the BJP government led by Laxmikant Parsekar had placed a moratorium on recruitment of government staff keeping in view the stress on the State’s finances. The move backfired and BJP was reduced from 21 to 13 in the Assembly elections.
However, in recent times the government has faced criticism from their own MLAs and Ministers for ban on recruitment. Dy Speaker Michael Lobo was the first to raise his voice on employment. He charged that BJP lost in 2017 due to the recruitment ban. Other MLAs started to echo this.
Now, come 2019, with the Lok Sabha and Assembly by-polls for Shiroda and Mandrem, the Parrikar-led coalition government appears to not want to take such a chance again.
Several thousand government job aspirants are queuing up at departments, which have advertised for posts, to submit their applications. Among government departments that have advertised vacancies under various categories, the South and North Collectorates constitute the highest comprising 147 and 133 posts for talathi, LDC, stenographer, aval karkun and multi-tasking staff.
A government official, overseeing the creation of posts, told Herald that the government is trying to tap in employment opportunities for Goans to compensate for the loss of face due to the absence of the Chief Minister. The bureaucrat explained that once the code of conduct is enforced, the process will be kept in abeyance.
