Central govt canceled lateral recruitment, Improvements will be made with review for reservation

The recruitment for appointment to some high and specialist posts in the central government has become a victim of political heat.

Under this process, UPSC has cancelled the advertisement for appointment of specialists on 45 administrative posts of Joint Secretary, Director and Deputy Secretary in 24 ministries.

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After the advertisement for this was released on August 17, not only the opposition parties including Congress but also some allies had raised questions about reservation. They said that there is no provision for SC-ST and OBC reservation in this recruitment process. In a shocking development on Tuesday, Union Personnel Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh wrote a letter to UPSC chief Preeti Sudan saying that the Prime Minister wants that any recruitment should be based on the principles of social justice.

UPSC withdrew the recruitment advertisement

Since all these recruitments are for single posts and reservation cannot be applied in it, hence it is requested to withdraw it. Immediately after this UPSC withdrew the recruitment advertisement. When recruitment is done for one post for different departments, it is called single post vacancy. According to Jitendra Singh, before 2014 most of the lateral entry appointments were made without any fixed process, in which there was a lot of favoritism, but the Modi government has institutionalized this process. Jitendra Singh wrote in the letter that for PM Modi, reservation in government jobs is a fundamental necessity of the framework of social justice.

Its objective is to end historical injustice and promote equality. Since it is a process of appointment of experts on single posts, there is no provision of reservation in it. This aspect needs to be reviewed and it will be improved in line with the PM’s focus on social justice. Jitendra Singh showed the mirror to the Congress which has shown an aggressive stance on lateral entry and said that during its rule many such high profile appointments were made under which secretaries in ministries and heads of Aadhaar institutions were appointed, but reservation was not taken care of in them. During the UPA government, the National Advisory Council was working under the then PM Manmohan Singh, but no care was taken of SC-ST and OBC reservation in the appointment of its members.

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Lateral entry in the administrative system means appointing subject experts outside the government service cadre like the Indian Administrative Service to top policy-making posts. In fact, this was recommended by the second Administrative Reforms Commission formed during the Congress-led UPA government in its report given in 2005, but the UPA government did not make any appointment in accordance with it.

The Modi government started implementing this important recommendation of that commission headed by Veerappa Moily in 2018. In this series, when an advertisement for recruitment to 45 posts was issued last week, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi raised questions on the intentions of the Modi government for not making reservation for SC-ST and OBC in it.

Along with the Congress, parties like SP, RJD and BSP also tried to make it a big political issue with the beginning of assembly elections in many states. The government’s allies – JDU and Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party also opposed this decision by adopting the same stance as the opposition parties in this matter. LJP’s Chirag Paswan even said that reservation should be ensured in all appointment processes without any ifs and buts.

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