With an eye on the forthcoming assembly polls, the Democratic Front government in Maharashtra on Wednesday decided to lift ban on recruitments and fill over 50,000 of nearly 100,000 vacancies in the open category in various government departments and offices.
The posts to be filled will also include those that lapsed in the past six months as they were not filled for a long time, Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters during a briefing after the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Soon after attaining power, the DF government had decided to ban recruitment in the open category due to the fragile economy that was heavily burdened following the implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations.
The new decision taken on Wednesday is not only in contravention of the DF government's earlier decision, but will also add more burden on the exchequer which reeling under the threat of a debt trap.
Shinde said that while permission has been granted to fill 100 per cent open category vacancies, 80 per cent of them will be through direct recruitment and remaining 20 per cent through surplus government staff.
The finance department will have to provide names of excess staff within one month of floating of the recruitment process for vacancies, failing which those posts will also be filled through direct recruitment, he added.
Nearly 6,000 surplus government employees are expected to be absorbed under the new recruitment, Shinde added.
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