With policies mired in controversies, Jharkhand job openings in deep freeze

Shambhu Nath Chaudhary

Ranchi, Dec 18 Plight of Jharkhand youths who are searching for government jobs is like a football which is not able to reach goalpost as the state government's policies are mired in controversies.

Aspiring youths are left in lurch due to one or the other reasons including glitches in examinations, reservation, language row. Sometimes students have to wait for their appointment letters despite qualifying the examinations.

Recently, Jharkhand High Court had quashed the state government's 2021 recruitment policy terming it as unconstitutional. Due to the ruling, the process of appointing 1 lakh people has been put on hold.

In August 2021, the Hemant Soren government had notified a policy for appointment on non-gazetted posts with amended rules, according to which, general category candidates will be eligible for the state government jobs, only if they have passed Class 10 and 12 from the schools and colleges in the state only.

As soon as the policy was notified, applicants challenged it in High Court, and after many hearings, the court pronounced its verdict on Friday.

The court termed the policy unconstitutional, saying that it violated the Constitution's Article 14 and 16.

It held the policy against the right to equality and against the spirit of the constitution.

The court said removing Hindi from the list of regional languages and including Urdu is not right.

Process for appointment on 14,000 posts was also going on and with this ruling, it has been cancelled.

Chief Minister Hemant Soren said that it will move the Supreme Court to challenge the Jharkhand High Court's ruling. It's obvious that the legal battle will take years to resolve and in the meantime, many candidates will be longer able to serve in the government departments as their age will exceed the limit in elegibilty criteria.

The Hemant Soren government had declared that the year 2021 will be the year of appointments but it passed by framing the policy for recruitment.

Replying to AJSU MLA Sudesh Mahto's in the winter session of Parliament last year, the government has said that 1915 youths were provided jobs in 2021 in 89 camps organised by the state government. But as these processes have been halted, now the youths will have to wait more.

Under the new policy 2021, recruitments were made for 432 posts while process for recuriting 13,968 people via 23 advertisements was being carried out.

Main examinations which have been cancelled are Jharkhand Diploma Level Combined Competition,

Jharkhand Intermediate Level Combined Competition, Post Graduate Trained Teachers, High School PGT, nurse, lab assistant scientist, ITI training officers.

Former Jharkhand Advocate General Ajeet Kumar said: "When the appointment policy will be made with political intentions and without considering legal aspects, then it is bound to meet this fate. Before making and implementing any policy, policies of other states and provisions of Constitution should be kept in mind."

When the Jharkhand government introduced this policy, since that time apprehensions were raised that it will not qualify the constitutional rules.

Previous Raghubar Das led BJP government in the state also could not do well in filling up the vacant posts in the government departments. Around 3.5 lakh government posts were vacant during their tenure. In his five year term, process of not even a single exam of JPSC was completed.

Exams conducted by JPSC are also mired in controversies. JPSC 7-9 exams were conducted jointly. Disputes started with the advertisements for this examination. The results from PT to Mains was revised thrice.

The court had also to intervene in the matter, after which appointments were made for 252 posts.

The appointment process is so slow in the state that even after 23 years of its formation, only six examination could be conducted when as per rules at least 20 examinations should have been conducted.

In Jharkhand's employment exchange, over eight lakh unemployed youth have registered.

As per figures by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, in November, state's employment rate was 14.03 per cent. Jharkhand was on the sixth spot in the list of states with higher number of unemployment.

Of the 5,33,000 posts approved in the state government, only 1,83,000 people have been employed which means that 3.5 lakh posts are still lying vacant. Around 1,40,000 posts are vacant in Primary Education department.

In secondary education department, 73000 posts are vacant and in Home Department 63000 posts are vacant.

Retired Professor of Vinoba Bhave University Dr S C Sharma said: "After Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar, youths of the state had high hopes that they will have more opportunities for the government jobs, but since 2023, their hopes are dashed."