The central government has recruited nearly 700,000 people at eleven Rojgar Melas, Hindi, for job fairs held between October 2022 and November 30 this year, government data shows.
In June 2022, in the wake of protests against the government's Agniveer plan for recruitment into the armed forces, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that the central government would recruit one million people over the next year and a half – a time frame that, by simple calculation, would cover the period until its end
this month.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the status of Human Resources in all departments and ministries and directed that the government would recruit 10 lakh people in mission mode in the next one and a half years,” the post said.
Santosh Mehrotra, a visiting professor at the University of Bath, says recruiting nearly 300,000 people in less than a month is highly unlikely as the process can be a lengthy one.
However, he added: “Government jobs anyway constitute a very small share of the total employment in the country. The government must shift its focus to restarting manufacturing and other labor-intensive sectors.”
Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of the Ministry of Personnel and Training, replied in Parliament in April this year that rozgar melas are being held across the country and the new appointees are being inducted into various central ministries, departments, Central Public Sector Undertakings (CPSUs) , autonomous bodies, public sector banks etc.
“Filling vacancies at various ministries/departments is a continuous process. All vacant posts are filled in a mission mode. The details of the number of appointments made are maintained by the respective ministries/departments/organizations etc,” the minister said.
First print: December 5, 2023 | 12:24 pm IST