PANAJI
There is a bonanza coming the way of unemployed youth in Goa in a year leading to the next general elections due approximately 16 months from now in early 2022.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday said, his government will lift by November 30 the ban on recruitment in the wake of financial disruption due to Covid-19 pandemic imposed in March this year and begin the process of filling some 10,000 vacancies thereafter.
Following precedents set by successive predecessor governments, Sawant too is seemingly relying on the tried and tested strategy of opening up government recruitment to earn goodwill going into a year leading to the 2022 Assembly election.
Speaking to reporters outside his official Altinho residence Sawant said the process to fill government posts lying vacant in various departments will begin soon.
He said, the ban on recruitment and tendering of government works, imposed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic in March this year, will be lifted by November 30.
"The office memorandum was issued in March because of Covid-19, which had weakened the financial situation of the State. We have taken a review now and the financial situation has improved considerably. The memorandum will be lifted from November 30," Sawant said.
The chief minister also said the ban on tendering new projects will also be simultaneously lifted.
There are vacant posts of around 10,000 in almost all government departments, he said, adding that advertisements will be issued for recruitment to these posts soon.
The next general elections to the Goa legislative assembly are due in early 2022 with the current legislature's term ending in mid-March that year.
Also, local elections are due to the two Zilla Panchayat bodies and also nearly a dozen civic bodies.
The Zilla Panchayat elections were halted after the process had neared its end and voting was postponed indefinitely from March 22 when the country observed a 'Janata Curfew' as a prelude to the national lockdown.
Also, municipal polls to at least a dozen civic bodies is overdue with their terms having ended and the State government opting to appoint bureaucrats as administrators to run their day-to-day affairs.
Government recruitment in Goa has over the last couple of decades taken a controversial and political hue with allegations of jobs being sold for cash and votes against the dispensation in power abounding.
Government recruitment processes in the past have invariably faced legal challenges in courts and some have even got struck down.
Earlier last year, Sawant had abruptly cancelled a recruitment process midway to fill some 1000-odd posts at the Goa Medical College and Hospital.
The move was seen as Sawant's attempt to check mate his cabinet colleague Vishwajit Rane who was keen on the GMC&H recruitment.
Sawant however justified it as in keeping with the Goa Staff Selection Commission law his government had enacted to create a board for conducting recruitment processes for all non-gazetted posts.
The Goa SSC rules were notified in February this year but it is yet to conduct its first process as soon after it was constituted, the State government issued the ban with the outbreak of the pandemic.
