Chandigarh, September 23
Lifting the ban on fresh recruitments in government departments in Punjab, the Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, today announced that the state government would start the recruitment to raise one Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) immediately, while for the second such battalion, the recruitment would start in two weeks.
He said today that the permission had been granted to fill over 5000 vacant posts of doctors, veterinary officers, teachers and clerks in cooperative banks and junior engineers and
assistant executive engineers in the PSEB.
It may be mentioned here that earlier the government had been giving permission to fill only those posts where it was utterly necessary. Even in certain departments posts vacant for over six months were freezed by the authorities concerned.
Giving details, he said that the state government had already approved the raising of one IRB and approval for the second was in the pipeline. Besides, the PSEB had been allowed to recruit 150 junior engineers and assistant executive engineers. As many as 1000 clerks and other staff would be recruited in cooperative banks. About 2000 ETT teachers would be recruited for primary schools soon, he said.
The government has also asked the Punjab Public Service Commission to start the recruitment process for PCS and allied services and of doctors and veterinary officers.
When asked
whether it was being done keeping in view of the byelections, he said that this decision had nothing to do with the byelections. Discussions to
fill the vacant posts in various departments were going on for the past few months and the decision was the outcome of that exercise. Moreover, byelections were being held only in two Assembly constituencies while recruitment would be made in the entire state.
Asked about the recruitment to fill about 25,000 posts of teacher in elementary and
secondary schools, he said that the issue had been handed over to a committee headed by Mrs Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Deputy Chief Minister. After the report of that committee, a decision to fill these posts would be taken. He said that he wanted that first rationalisation of posts should be ordered.
Surplus staff from urban areas should be shifted to rural schools. In certain urban schools the teacher-pupil ratio was only 1: 7, he asserted. He said that there were about 83,000 teachers on rolls of the government at present.
