KCR bonanza for jobless, 80K posts to be filled up

HYDERABAD: In a major bonanza to unemployed youth in Telangana, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Wednesday announced a mega recruitment drive to fill 80,039 posts at one go in various departments of the state government with immediate effect.

He also announced relaxing upper age limit for recruitments by 10 years. Upper age limit for candidates belonging to Other Caste (OCs) will now be 44 years. For Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Backward Classes (BCs), the new upper age limit will be 49 years. This will be 54 years for the physically challenged.

The Chief Minister also announced that all 11,103 contract employees would be regularised. Hereafter, there will be no contract appointments system in the state, he said amid thumping of desks by the legislators.

He made a statement to this effect in the Legislative Assembly ending a five-year-long wait of unemployed youth in the state for government job notifications adding that the delay was on account of bringing new zonal system to ensure 95 per cent reservations for locals in jobs following the creation of new districts, zones and multi zones for which the Centre took time to approve.

The Chief Minister stated that with this recruitment drive, a total of 91,142 vacancies would be filled, of which the services of 11,103 contract employees working for years would be regularised, amid thumping of desks by the legislators. He announced scrapping of the contract system of appointing employees in the government adding that henceforth employees would be appointed only on regular-basis.

He said the government has also decided that henceforth vacancies would be identified in advance and an annual calendar for recruitments would be published and recruitments would be taken up in a transparent manner.

"As a result of these recruitments, there will be an additional financial burden of Rs 7,000 crore per annum on the state government. Nevertheless, we have taken this bold decision to go ahead with the recruitments," Rao said.

Of 80,039 vacancies to be filled, 18,334 are in home department, 13,086 in secondary education, 12,755 in medical, health & family welfare, 7,878 in higher education, 4,311 in backward classes welfare, 3,560 in revenue department and the remaining in 21 other departments.

Chandrashekar Rao recalled that the slogan of the Telangana movement was water, funds and jobs to Telangana locals. "After the formation of the state, the funds of Telangana are available to Telangana itself. By constructing Kaleshwaram and several other irrigation projects, we could secure Telangana's share of water in Krishna and Godavari. With 95 per cent reservations for locals now, we ensured that only Telangana locals get state government jobs," he said.

With the amendment to the Presidential Order cleared by the Centre in August 2021 due to the efforts of the Telangana government, local candidates would get 95 per cent reservation in government employment from the lowest cadre of attendant to the highest cadre of revenue division officer (RDO), he told the House claiming that Telangana was the only state in the entire country to achieve this.

He explained the measures taken by the state government after the formation of the new state to improve the administration. He said a total of 1,12,307 new posts were sanctioned. Along with this, the government identified the vacant posts and decided to fill up 1,56,254 posts. Till now 1,33,942 posts had been filled-up, he said.

Stating that Telangana locals suffered huge discrimination in jobs in undivided AP, the Chief Minister said, "The reservations for locals was 60 per cent in undivided AP. For state-level posts, there were no reservations for locals. We have decided to scrap state-wide posts.

There will be only district, zones and multi-zone posts with 95 per cent reservations for locals. Even in the remaining 5 per cent, which is open quota, Telangana local candidates can compete. This would result in almost 98 to 100 per cent jobs to Telangana locals."

The vacancies announced by the Chief Minister include Group-I posts 503, Group-II 582, Group III 1,373 and Group-IV 9,168 posts. Cadre-wise vacancies include, district-wise 39,829, zonal-wise 18,866, multi-zonal 13,170 posts and Secretariat and HoDs, universities 8,174 posts.