New Delhi: The Union government may push its departments and public sector firms to fill backlog reserved vacancies for Scheduled Castes (SCs) as soon as possible. This is because finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has told public sector banks to fill vacant SC positions by December 31 and let the National Commission for Scheduled Castes know.
While public sector banks (PSBs) are expected to start the recruitment drive on October 2, the government will push its agencies and public sector undertakings (PSUs) to fill vacancies quickly, they said on condition of anonymity.
Citing minister of state for personnel Jitendra Singh’s answer in Lok Sabha on July 20, 2022, they said that as of January 1, 2021, there were 18,132 reserved vacancies in the 10 ministries and departments that had more than 90% of central government employees. They are defence, railways, financial services, post, home affairs, atomic energy, revenue, education, defence production, housing, and urban affairs.
On Thursday, the head of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), Vijay Sampla, said that the finance minister gave specific deadlines to CMDs of banks during a review of PSBs’ performance earlier this week. The deadlines were for inclusive credit disbursement and filling up vacant posts reserved for SCs.
“All banks [PSBs] will start a special campaign on October 2 to fill Scheduled Castes jobs that haven’t been filled yet. This task needs to be done by the end of 2022,” he said. He was there when the review was done, and the finance minister has told public sector banks and the department of financial services (DFS) to let NCSC know how things are going.
One of the officials mentioned above said that the vacancies in state-run banks, including promotions related to SCs, could be around 7–8% of the 18,132 jobs that need to be filled. “But FM and the NCSC Chairman’s plan will set a trend and show other departments how to do it. “If India wants to be a developed country by 2047, it can’t ignore the improvement of the lives of about 20 to 25 crore people,” he said.
Sampla told reporters on Thursday that the government is also focused on giving the SCs more financial power. With the right loans and help from banks, many of them can start their own businesses and start hiring people instead of looking for jobs.
According to a statement released by the finance ministry after Tuesday’s review meeting, Sitharaman asked banks to fill the few remaining backlog vacancies within a certain amount of time and provide forward and backward linkages by bringing together different schemes for SCs that help them financially. She told the heads of banks to look into the needs of SCs in terms of building their skills and encouraging them to start their own businesses, since SCs make up about 18% of the total workforce in banks and financial institutions.
Since October 1, banks have also been told “to keep proper digital records for jobs that are being outsourced, especially for jobs like Safai Karamcharis.” DFS has been told to start a special campaign on October 2 to solve all of the SC community’s unresolved problems.
The finance minister also told PSBs to tell the NCSC twice a year about the progress made in recruitment and credit to Scheduled Costs. The first time should happen between April 14 (Babasaheb Ambedkar’s birthday) and April 30. The second time should happen in October.
