Telangana Govt Grilled For Not Filling Vacant Posts

The Telangana TRS government came in for severe criticism from the Opposition in the State Assembly for what it termed as the former's utter failure to fill up the existing job vacancies and thus "cheating" the unemployed youth of the employment promised after the formation of Telangana.

The issue cropped up during the Question Hour when TDP member R Krishnaiah wanted to know the number of posts vacant, and for filling up how many posts notifications were issued.

Finance Minister Etela Rajender assured the agitated Opposition members that the State government would take all possible measures to fill up the existing vacancies within one month.

Earlier, the minister had revealed that nearly two lakh posts were vacant, and that the government had issued orders for the filling up of 1,84,234 direct recruitment vacancies of which notifications were issued for 14,789 vacancies.

The Finance Minister further explained that over 3,000 vacancies in the RTC were filled up as also were 4,500 posts in Singareni Collieries. The Telangana government had in fact created over 16,000 new posts within 20 months besides regularizing contract employees and also ensuring a minimum salary of Rs. 15,000 per month to the outsourced employees.

The state government was committed to its promise of providing employment to the unemployed, and would fill up the vacancies within in one month, he added.

Krishnaiah lamented that thousands of posts were vacant in the education sector, and wanted the government to ensure that these were filled up at the earliest, especially the vacant teachers' posts.

Congress leaders including TPCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy accused the government of "cheating" the youth by promising to provide employment to jobless youth and enticing them to take part in the Telangana movement, but forgetting them after the new State was formed. The treasury benches protested against this charge and countered that during the 10-year rule of the Congress the youth had been left in the lurch as the government had not filled up any vacant posts.