Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has dismissed allegations of 'backdoor appointment' being rampant in government services, taking away chances of people in various rank lists of the Public Service Commission. The CM dubbed the allegations to be a baseless campaign by opposition parties. Speaking to reporters at Thrissur, Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala on Wednesday had alleged the cabinet had considered a file to make permanent around 2,600 contract staff in the government service.
The state has also been witnessing severe protests by PSC candidates since the last two days in front of the Secretariat. Reacting to this, the Chief Minister told the media at Thiruvananthapuram that the government was making permanent those who have been working for more than 10 years in government institutions "where appointments cannot be made through PSC or are not left to the Public Service Commission".
"Today's cabinet meeting has decided to make permanent some who have been working continuously for more than ten years including the 'Vidya volunteers' teaching in single-teacher schools located in isolated coastal and forest areas," Pinarayi Vijayan said. It had been a long standing demand of teachers of single-teacher schools, to make them permanent employees.
He said the allegation of backdoor appointments will not stand as those who are being made permanent were appointed during the term of the previous UDF government. "...None of them were appointed by the Left government. This includes those who have been in service for 20 years or more also. No one was included or excluded for political reasons.They were made permanent based on humanitarian consideration," Vijayan said.
To Chennithala's allegation that the state government has not extended the validity of any rank list, Vijayan said all PSC rank lists ending in February have already been extended by six more months.
"With this, the vacancies which will arise during April and May, when most number of retirements happen, will also be made available to existing rank lists," Vijayan said.
Several youths have been protesting in front of the state secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram since January 26 demanding that the validity of the Last Grade PSC rank list published in 2017 be extended by six more months.
Explaining the appointments made by the government through the PSC, Vijayan said, including the 27,000 permanent posts, the Left government created 44,000 new posts in the last five years and appointed 1,57,911 people through the PSC.
"This government has released 4,012 rank lists in five years which include nearly four lakh people. Not everyone gets a job in this. Only one-fifth of the people are normally recruited. Currently, there are 5,28,231 government staff across the state. Every year only 25,000 appointments can be made to government service.This government has made more appointments than was possible," Vijayan said.
He said it was impractical to give a job to everyone in the rank list as the PSC includes five times more candidates than the existing vacancies. The CM also added that the state government has been striving to provide jobs to the youngsters in the state and for that investment is being done to create more job opportunities.
He also attacked the Union government and said lakhs of vacancies were there in central services and central public sector undertakings and there was a recruitment freeze. Vijayan said attempts are being made to "cover up all these facts and spread misunderstanding among the job seekers".
"Some elements with vested interests are trying to lure innocent youths into the streets. We also witnessed some dramatic events the other day. Even people who were not on any list performed some dangerous acts that could endanger people's lives," CM said referring to a suicide attempt by two persons who poured kerosene over themselves during the protest by PSC rank holders.
Watch video of teacher rowing a boat, trekking kilometres to teach a tribal school in Kerala