MARGAO
Curtains have finally come down on the 2019 recruitment process to fill up the 147 posts of LDCs, talathis, junior stenographers, and multi-tasking staff in the South Goa District Collectorate in 2024, but not before opposition MLA Vijai Sardesai made stunning “cash for jobs” scam allegations against the government in the recruitment of the LDCs.
While the recruitment process is believed to have been finally capped, questions have arisen about how the government would go about filling up the 60-odd vacancies in the South District Collectorate, whether departmentally or via the State Selection Commission.
A senior District Collectorate official has informed that the district administration has already written to the Staff Selection Commission to fill up the vacant posts. “We have already notified the SSC to fill up the vacant posts. Maybe, the SSC will start the recruitment process along with the vacancies in the North Goa Collectorate. We are awaiting the government to take a call,” the official informed.
Sources in the South District Collectorate have indicated that it took over five years for the government to cap the recruitment process that started in February 2019. What, however, left the process tainted was the serious allegation of a cash-for-jobs scam raised by the Goa Forward chief.
“I had asked the government to conduct an inquiry into the LDC recruitment in the District Collectorate. We have also initiated our own inquiry into the cash-for-job scam. We are examining the possibility of taking legal recourse in the matter,” Sardesai said.
District Collectorate officials, however, have pointed out that they have no role in the examination process or the selection of candidates, after having outsourced the conduct of examinations to an agency to fill up the vacant posts.
Thousands of job seekers had burnt the midnight oil at the imposing South Goa district Collectorate complex around half a decade ago to submit their application forms for the 147 posts. They had to wait for four years before the District Collectorate officials announced the examination schedule late last year.
