Politicking on government employment

Political parties making a hue and cry with regard to the number of vacancies in the Telangana government are not putting out the figures with factual position. On one hand, the government says 50,000 and odd vacancies while the non-ruling parties claim 1.5 lakh vacancies in the State. One should always remember while quoting the figures that the government constantly reviews the vacancies on the basis of changing times, situation and goes by the philosophy of downsizing or increasing or rightsizing the employee necessity.

Craving for the government jobs will never dissipate as they afford job security and regular rise in the pay. Vacancies should be viewed in two ways – direct and indirect. Direct jobs are those that are filled up through TSPSC and indirect ones are those where employment is found in government projects executed by private parties or under the PPP (public-private partnership) mode.

The government doesn't take upon itself the credit for this indirect employment which runs into lakhs because it doesn't pay the salaries directly. Just imagine if the projects are not there, the magnitude of unemployment would be far higher. Every political party knows that if it were in power, the scenario would be far different than what they keep harping on while out of power.

So, making claims and counter claims about job vacancies is not a healthy trend as the information gap annoys the already battered unemployed youth. All political parties should be united in some common causes like internal security, unemployment which should be kept away strictly from any politicking.

D Nagarjuna, Hyderabad