‘No Ban On Hiring For Govt Jobs’: FinMin Nirmala Sitharaman

There is no restriction or ban on filling up of posts in the Government of India. Normal recruitments through government agencies like Staff Selection Commission, UPSC, Railway Recruitment Board, etc will continue as usual without any curbs, the Ministry of Finance clarified in its statement on Saturday (September 5).

Administrative Expenditures

The Ministry has also stated that the Department of Expenditure circular dated 04 September 2020 deals with the internal procedure for the creation of posts and doesn’t in any way affect or curtail recruitment.

“Administrative expenditure: All Ministries/Departments including attached offices/subordinate offices and autonomous bodies shall observe the following instructions for curtailing administrative expenditure–No printing/publishing of books, publications, documents, etc. will be done on imported paper, except where printing is done abroad by Indian Missions, etc.” read Ministry’s clarification.

“Expenditure on functions such as celebrations of Foundation Day, etc. should be discouraged or if felt necessary to be appropriately curtailed. In any case, travel for such functions and provision of bags or mementoes should be avoided,” it added.

What Does The Document Talk About?

The document announced a “ban on the creation of new posts” except with the approval of Department of Expenditure, in Ministries/Departments, Attached Offices, Subordinate Offices, Statutory Bodies and Autonomous Bodies. The Department comes under the Ministry of Finance.

“This ban will cover all creation of posts under powers which have been delegated to any organisation regardless of the source of such authority or power,” the Memorandum read.

“Secretaries of the Ministries/Departments, being the Chief Accounting Authorities as per Rule 70 of GFR, shall be fully charged with the responsibility of ensuring compliance of the above instructions,” it added.

The Opposition’s Demand

The Congress on Saturday demanded that the Centre withdraw its circular calling for a freeze on the creation of new posts, and urged it to create more vacancies while filling the existing ones in the wake of the alleged rise in unemployment.

As part of measures to rationalise non-priority expenditure, the government on Friday asked all ministries and departments to review appointments of consultants, curtail functions among other steps. It said there will be a ban on the creation of new posts, except with the approval of the expenditure department.