TRS faces heat: Osmania University on boil again, students feel contract staff will take jobs

Hyderabad: Tension gripped the Osmania University campus on Friday with the police lathi-charging students who were protesting the recent announcement of Telangana Chief Minister, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, regularising contract employees.

The TRS government is now facing the heat from studentswho were the party’s most staunch supporters during the T-movement who say that they have been let down by the government as the move will deprive students from Telangana of job opportunities.

Many students blocked the road at the Tarnaka junction, bringing traffic to a standstill. Police had to rush to the spot and after a lathi-charge, some students were taken into preventive custody. Following this, more students crowded the police station and demanded the release of their colleagues. The students were released  later.

Currently, 70,000 contract employees are working in the state, which include 15,000 gazetted officers, 25,000 non-gazetted officers and another 30,000 outsourced employees. Regularising them will result in reducing the promised 1 lakh jobs to students to a mere 30,000.

The students demanded that the government roll back the decision, set up a Telangana Public Service Commission, issue job notifications and conduct interviews in a fair manner. They wanted the government to submit overall figures of the total number of vacancies across different departments and the requirements as per the Rule of Reservation.

“Students led the state formation movement. If now contract employees are regularised, many Telangana students won’t get job opportunities. The main reason for this movement among students was because there were not enough jobs for us. This move must be stopped and the hiring must be done as per the Rule Of Reservation,” said Mandala Bhaskar, a research scholar and chairman of the Telangana Student Joint Action Committee.

He mentioned that the appointments of contract workers had not been made as per proper interview procedures.

“Till now, they were working on contract basis. Their appointment is temporary as they never went through a proper recruitment procedure. Due to lack of guidelines, their contracts were renewed every year,” a student said.

A.V.R. Narsimha Rao, inspector, OU police station said, “The students wanted to take a rally out till Tarnaka and some  managed to go till there without prior permission. They were taken into custody and released later.”