The South Goa district administration has again set the ball rolling on filling vacancies at the Collectorate. There are 147 posts up for grabs, with vacancies for junior stenographers, Lower Division Clerks, Multi-tasking force staff and talathis. This is the third time the process has been initiated in over four years — the first was in 2019, and the second was earlier this year.
The count of thirty thousand applications amplifies the demand for government jobs. However, consider the injustice to those who can't apply for these posts, which were in deep freeze for years. Also, the posts do not come under the Staff Selection Commission because of the cut-off date of vacancies set by the government. The larger question is whether this recruitment will be in the spirit of 'merit and transparency' that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has been portraying.
Amid consistent allegations of political influences affecting recruitment and Sawant's own admission that 20 per cent of government employees are underperformers and lethargic, there was every reason to ensure this becomes a start-point. Instead, the government has chosen the old path and kept this recruitment process outside the ambit of the Staff Selection Commission (SSC).
Rules should also be uniform if the plan is to bring uniformity because the objective is common -- getting good human resources. The logic of not allowing specific posts to go under SSC because of a timeline is absurd reasoning if the State is genuinely scouting for meritorious and capable resources.
Surprisingly, the way the current process is handled speaks volumes of seriousness. While intimations are being dispatched to candidates, there is an element of uncertainty over these intimations reaching the persons due to incomplete postal addresses. It would be unfortunate if the candidate either receives the post late or does not receive it at all. The problem could occur because the complete residential address has not been mentioned in several cases.
Against the backdrop of closer scrutiny of the recruitment, the authorities should have taken enough precautions to put seamless processes in place to ensure that candidates are well informed. The examination starts on September 29 and is barely a week away.
Sadly, in an age where the government is talking about modern technology and planning to make it part of the administrative system, it is still banking on an age-old system in the critical area of recruitment. By now, we should be discontinuing the use of snail mail for official correspondence, switching completely to email, and supplementing it with other modes of intimation like an SMS service or a WhatsApp message.
The District Collector may have issued a public notice intimating all eligible candidates of the examination schedule and has pointed out that admit cards can be downloaded from the website, but that does not resolve the issue in all its fairness.
The State should offer a level playing field to all applicants and close all doors for manipulation and interference. Justice has to be done to those deserving; otherwise, this will continue to be an endless story of a mismatch of human resources in government offices, and non-deserving candidates will continue to find favour. The buck has to stop somewhere.
