Several lakh appointments made since 2022: Govt; MP Brittas cites lack of actual data

Union minister Jitendra Singh said instructions have been issued to all ministries/departments of the central govt to constitute an in-house committee for identification of backlog reserved vacancies

The government on Thursday informed the Rajya Sabha that several lakh appointments had been made across various ministries and departments through 13 Rozgar Melas held in 45-50 cities since 2022. However, the response did not provide specific details regarding the exact number of appointments or their distribution by category.

Minister of State Jitendra Singh speaks during the Winter session of Parliament. (PTI photo)

The response was given by Union minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions Jitendra Singh to questions posed by Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas.

The CPI(M) MP inquired about current vacancies in government departments, the number of posts abolished and the new appointments made over the past five years.

The absence of statistics in the written response raised concerns for the Rajya Sabha MP, who criticised the government for its lack of transparency and accountability.

“Despite seeking detailed category-wise data on sanctioned posts, current vacancies, and appointments made over the past five years in central government departments, the ministry failed to provide any statistics. This lack of transparency undermines the government’s claims of accountability, raising concerns about its commitment to addressing unemployment,” Brittas said.

He also asked about the reasons for the removal of data on reservations in government jobs from the department of personnel and training (DoPT)’s annual report 2023-24.

In response, the union minister said, “Obtaining data/information from ministries/ departments is a time-consuming process. At the time of finalising the annual report, the relevant data received from various ministries/departments was incomplete and required reconciliation. Hence, the same could not be included in the annual report (2023-24) of DoPT.”

Furthermore, the minister said the data has since been reconciled.

“As of January 1, 2024, 5.47 lakh employees belonged to the scheduled caste (SC), 2.82 lakh to the scheduled tribe (ST) and 8.55 lakh to the other backward classes (OBC) in various government departments”, he said.

“The representation of SC and ST is as per the prescribed limit of 15% and 7.5% respectively. The representation of OBCs in direct recruitment has also consistently been more than 27% during the last 10 years,” the minister added.