JOIN USKey ministries left with largest vacancies: Pay panel
Many of the crucial Central ministries except Home are functioning below the sanctioned employee strength, the Seventh Pay Commission’s analysis of the workforce has revealed.
While close to half of the posts in the finance ministry are vacant, the railways and defence together account for 56 per cent total vacancies in the Central government.
The analysis showed the finance ministry has only 95,863 employees as on January 1, 2014, against its strength of 1.76 lakhs that puts the deficiency at 46 per cent.
Out of the 12,985 sanctioned Group A posts at the finance ministry, 7,138 are vacant. In effect, 55 per cent posts in ‘Group A’, responsible for fine-tuning policy decisions, are unoccupied. The number of personnel have also been showing a steady decline at the ministry from 1.05 lakh in 2006, to 1.02 lakh in 2010 and 95,863 in 2014. The Railway ministry, the biggest state employee in the country, has the maximum vacancies in the Central government. While it has a sanctioned strength of 15.51 lakh, there are 2.35 lakh or 15 per cent vacancies in the ministry.
The defence ministry is second highest in terms of vacancies with 1.87 lakh unfilled positions. Out of the sanctioned strength of 5.85 lakh, defence ministry has only filled in 3.98 lakh.
The postal department has 59,817 vacancies out of a sanctioned strength of 2.49 lakh. In effect, it has 24 per cent vacant positions. In all, the Central government is falling short by 7.47 lakh or 18 per cent employees against the sanctioned strength of 40.48 lakh.
Despite recruiting 5.70 lakh employees between 2010 and 2014, the gap persisted due to large number of retirement and increase in sanctioned strength.
The Commission suggested determining skills and competencies across ministries for the government to meet its medium term goals and priorities.
This will have implications for recruitment policies besides the size and composition of the government, it said.