Shinde-Fadnavis govt rolls out drive for 75,000 govt jobs

Mumbai: Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a recruitment drive for 10 lakh government jobs, the Maharashtra government on Thursday launched its own leg of recruitment to 75,000 government jobs

Mumbai: Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a recruitment drive for 10 lakh government jobs, the Maharashtra government on Thursday launched its own leg of recruitment to 75,000 government jobs. Around 1,796 new recruits were given appointment letters on the day of launch.

CM Shinde and Dy CM Fadnavis distribute appointment letters to candidates at “Mahasankalp” program, organised by state government in Nariman Point. (HT PHOTO)

According to a rough estimate collated by the general administration department, Maharashtra has over 2.50 lakh vacant posts in various departments of the state government. The state government on September 22 issued an order allowing departments to recruit people to 10 percent of the vacant posts of officers and 50 percent of the clerical and Class IV categories.

At an event held at the Y B Chavan Centre in Mumbai, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who addressed the gathering virtually, said that his government’s spending on infrastructure projects would help in the generation of jobs. “The central government has rolled out railway projects worth ₹75,000 crore and road construction projects worth ₹50,000 crore. Youngsters from Maharashtra benefited to a large extent from the Mudra scheme under which the Centre disbursed ₹20 lakh crore to the youth for self-employment schemes,” he said.

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced that the government had appointed Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), an agency owned by the ministry of finance, to conduct recruitment examinations for the state government. The decision, he said, was taken to bring transparency into the examination process in the backdrop of corruption cases unearthed in the past.

Fadnavis said that besides recruitments to 18,331 posts in the police force and 10,500 in the rural development department in the next few weeks, the 75,000 posts would be filled over the next one year. “The recruitment process in state government departments has been unofficially stalled for the last 15 years,” he said. “Recruitment had been taking place only for departments in dire need of employees. We have decided to lift the ban and begin recruitment in the interest of unemployed persons in the state.”

The DCM added that apart from the recruitment in government departments, the skill development department of the state was signing memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with private players for recruitment in private companies. “The MoUs will help us in offering 1 lakh jobs to aspirants from Maharashtra,” he said.

Modi plays Employment for Maharashtra card

After the Shinde-Fadnavis government faced a backlash over losing four major projects to neighbouring Gujarat, Modi made it a point to announce that the central government had approved around 225 projects worth over ₹2 lakh crore in Maharashtra. Work on these projects has either begun or will begin soon.

The remarks by PM Modi came amid controversy after the ambitious ₹1.54-lakh-crore Vedanta-Foxconn, the ₹5,000-crore bulk drug park, the ₹424-crore medical devices park and the ₹22,000-crore Tata Airbus projects went to Gujarat while the French aircraft engine major Safran recently decided to shift its proposed unit to Hyderabad.

Chief minister Eknath Shinde said that Maharashtra was the first state to respond to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to begin the recruitment process for government jobs and added that the central government had given its nod to urban development department proposals worth ₹1,40,000 crore. “My government is trying to bring in investment, and the prime minister is with us,” he declared. Shinde informed the audience that investment projects worth ₹25,000 crore were approved in the cabinet sub-committee on industries meeting held on October 20, which would help in creating around 8,500 direct jobs and 10,000 indirect jobs.

“A Japanese trading firm, Sumitomo Corporation, has recently bought a big space worth ₹2,067 crore at Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai to set up a multinational corporate office, where around 5,000 to 6,000 people will get jobs,” he said.