PANJIM: The long pause in cabinet meetings may not have created much dissatisfaction among its members, but Ministers are disappointed as they have been face flak from voters, particularly over the failure to create new job opportunities. Approximately 5000 job vacancies were supposed to open up in the government sector by February end, however, this didn’t happen as the Special Empowered Committee, constituted to clear vacancies in various departments is headed by the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who is undergoing treatment in the US.
While no minister is willing to speak on the issue, the distress is quite clear in their communication. Ministers, across party lines, are facing a tough time in their constituencies, pending filling up of vacancies in their departments. There is also a backlog of vacancies amounting to hundreds in the departments of Health, Public Works, Power, Tribal Welfare, etc.
The Cabinet, as well as the Cabinet Advisory Committee (CAC), have no powers in clearing jobs in various departments. The power solely lies with four-member High Level Empowered Committee (HLEC) headed by the Chief Minister.
“The ministers have no issue as far as administrative clearances and financial clearances are concerned. The only worry is recruitment. In the last five months, no vacancies have been created. Those that have been advertised are for contractual purposes for a period of six to eleven months. No permanent jobs have been created till now,” a senior officer attached to a Minister said.
In a bid to simplify the lengthy recruitment process, the State Government had constituted a four-member HLEC in November, last year, to consider proposals from departments for creation, revival and abolition of posts.
Sources confirmed that committee held its first informal meeting in December 2017 and was to meet again to clear vacancies. “The committee was also supposed to decide on policy for regularising contractual workers. However, before it could meet, Parrikar fell ill,” sources said.
Senior Minister Francis D’Souza said there is smooth functioning of the administration and the CAC is doing its job. “I don’t think there is any administrative problem. Files are getting cleared and wherever required, the Cabinet is taking decisions through circulation,” he stated.
Asked about the employment backlog, the Minister said, “Everything will be done at the right time”.
Another minister and CAC member Vijai Sardesai too stated that as far as his departments are concerned, there are no major problems and decision making has been smooth. “There have been no major proposals from my department. TCP, Agriculture and Archives are, to a large extent, non-revenue departments and hence for me there has been no issue,” he said.
“As far as developmental works in my constituency are concerned, everything is on the right track. There is absolutely no problem,” Sardesai said, adding ‘that issue will always be there’ on the jobs front.
WRD Minister Vinod Palyekar too said that in the absence of cabinet meetings, wherever required clearances are received. He, however, admitted that the administrative functioning would have been smother if Parrikar was in State.
“There is no difference between the period when we had cabinet meetings and at the present stage as the cabinet decisions are taken by circulation. The administration is working perfectly fine but could have been smoother if the Chief Minister was present,” he said.
WRD is one amongst several departments whose financial proposals worth Rs 30 crore have been cleared by CAC in the last two months.
If one recalls, Art and Culture Minister Govind Gawade was the only one who admitted that the Chief Minister’s absence is being felt by the Cabinet and that the CAC is not in position to handle the situation.
While he remained unavailable for the comments, he was earlier quoted saying, “It is an open secret that it was “difficult” to run the government in the chief minister’s absence. It is obvious that we are feeling his absence.”
