Telangana: CM KCR announces notification for 80,039 govt jobs

Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has announced the job notification for 80,039 job vacancies in the state on Wednesday. He has also declared the regularization of 11,103 contract employee jobs in the state. That takes the announcement of a total of 91,142 jobs in the state.

“The process of filling up these vacancies will begin immediately,” he declared in the state Assembly.

The announcement comes when the issue of unemployment has become so heated with frequent protests by opposition parties and unemployed youth across the state. The CM blamed state bifurcation issues and court orders as the reason for the stall in issuing the notification. “The centre should arbitrate these issues but is not doing so. The claims made by the Andhra Pradesh government asking for a share in Nizam inherited properties are bizarre. These issues have made the whole situation quite complex,” he remarked.

“From the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, the new state has inherited contract employees. The government has decided that it’s not right to have such a huge number of contract employees in the public sector. That is why in 2014, on humanitarian grounds, the government has decided the regularize these jobs. But due to the court cases filed by a few narrow-minded political parties and the interim orders passed by the high court, this process came to a halt. But the government kept fighting in the courts of law. And, due to these efforts, in December 2021, the high court struck off the writ petitions. Now that all the obstacles have been removed, the government has now regularized the services of contract employees,” CM KCR said. “The process of contract-based hiring will no more be there in the state of Telangana,” he declared.

“For others, politics is a game, for us, it’s a task,” the CM remarked in the assembly.

After the regularization of these jobs, we have still found vacancies for 80,039 jobs in the state. I feel happy to inform the unemployed youth of the state that the process of filling up these vacancies will immediately begin. The state government spending will go up to about Rs 7300 crores due to filling these vacancies and regularizing contract jobs. Even then, the government is moving forward in a brave manner.

The state government has so far given notifications for 1.56 lakh jobs and has filled up 1.33 lakh posts so far. Filling up vacancies of around 23,000 posts is underway,” the Chief Minister said.

The CM further said that the government has decided to relax the upper age limit for direct recruitment keeping in view the aspirations of the unemployed youth. “To enable more unemployed become eligible to compete in the proposed recruitment we have decided to move the bar up by ten years, except for uniformed services like police. With this, the upper age limit will be 44 years for O.C, 49 years for SC, ST, BC, 54 years for Physically handicapped, and 47 years for Ex-Servicemen,” he informed.

Other important points from his speech

• “Inadequate representation and injustice in public employment to the local candidates belonging to the Telangana region was one of the issues that led to the demand for a separate State of Telangana. The government, therefore, has always been conscious of the aspirations of the local candidates of Telangana in regard to employment in Government and Government institutions.”

• “Though the employment potential in government in any state or country would be limited to not more than 5% of the total employment, the fact remains that there is certain amount of satisfaction and pride associated with the employment in government.”

• “It is in this background that the Government of Telangana have made efforts and succeeded in obtaining a new Presidential Order for Telangana under Article 371-D of the Constitution of India which now provides for reservations in favour of local candidates in civil posts and posts under local authorities to an extent of 95% at all levels, starting from lowest cadre to posts equivalent to Deputy Collector.  The reservation in favour of local candidates belonging to Telangana under the new Presidential Order is substantially higher than the reservation that was in vogue under old Presidential Order, both in terms of percentage of reservation and the posts covered for reservation.  The new Presidential order provides for reservation even in posts like, Deputy Collector, CTO & DSP for which there was no reservation in favour of local candidates under the old Presidential Order.  Further, the extent of reservation is now 95% for all posts as against the 60 to 80% under the old Presidential Order.”

• “The local candidates of Telangana, apart from the 95% reservation in their district, zone and multi zone can also compete for the 5% open quota in any other district, zone or multi zone. This in effect would enable candidates local to Telangana to compete for all the 100% vacancies in any district, zone or multi zone. Further, a local candidate of Telangana can compete for the district cadre posts in his local district and zonal cadre posts in the zone where the candidate’s district is located.”

• “The formation of new state of Telangana, apart from division of territories, also involved division of assets and employees, not only in government and government institutions, but also the various commercial undertakings and other entities under the government included in Schedules-IX and X of the Andhra Pradesh Re-Organization Act.  This exercise has taken lot of time, as division of employees involved the Central Government and issue of orders by the Central Government under the A.P. Re-organization Act.  The entire exercise of division of employees of government departments has been completed only in the year 2017.  Division of assets and employees in respect of Schedule-IX and X institutions is not yet completed.  Associated with this exercise are several court cases and litigation between the two states and also the various cases filed by the aggrieved employees.”

• “The Government of Telangana, after formation of the new State have embarked upon several path-breaking schemes and projects, which necessitated a change in the priorities of the government, which in-turn also necessitated re-designing of several departments and strengthening of core departments like Irrigation, Agriculture, Police, Medical and Health, Rural Water Supply, Panchayat Raj and Education.”

• “In this process, the Government have sanctioned 1,12,307 new posts in various departments in tune with the priorities set by the Government, which include 1,526 posts of Agricultural Extension Officer Grade-II, and 6,603 posts of Panchayat Secretaries.”

• “Notwithstanding the above scenario and challenges, the government have notified 1,56,254 posts for recruitment after the formation of Telangana, out of which 1,33,942 posts have been filled up. The remaining 22,312 posts are under the recruitment process.” 

• “The direct recruitment to certain categories of posts, which were categorized as Group-I, Group-II, Group-III and Group-IV and several other posts in several departments was held up mainly on account of the amendments awaited to the Presidential Order, 2018. This is to ensure the benefit of 95% reservation in favour of local candidates in direct recruitment in (33) districts, (7) Zonal and (2) Multi Zonal cadres.”

• “Soon after the amendments were received and approved by the Central Government in June 2021, the organization of new local cadres as per the new Presidential Order, 2018 has been completed in August 2021.”

• “After consultation with various employees’ associations, the allotment of the existing employees among the new local cadres was taken up and completed during December 2021. With this, the number of direct recruitment vacancies in each of the new local cadres viz., District, Zonal, and Multi Zonal is now known, for the purpose of notifying vacancies and direct recruitment.” 

• “The government, after considering the requirement in the newly formed Districts, Municipalities, and Gram Panchayats, have decided to sanction 6,211 new posts. In addition, the government also proposes to fill up 2,020 teaching posts and 2,774 non-teaching posts in the universities.”

• “The government has also decided that it will determine in advance and notify the direct recruitment vacancies that would be filled every year. Accordingly, strict instructions have been issued by the Chief Secretary to all the Secretaries and HoDs to regularly update the vacancy position in their respective departments. Then a recruitment calendar will be announced annually. Accordingly, all the departments will immediately give indents to the concerned recruiting agencies for issue of notifications. The notifications will be issued with suitable gaps to facilitate aspiring candidates to compete in various examinations.”