Every government post in UP is for sale!
Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
'Pay the price and the job is yours.' That's the latest buzz in Mayawati's Uttar Pradesh where every position in the state government is said to be up for sale.
It is not as if this has not happened earlier. But
the manner in which the floodgates opened recently for the
sale of UP government jobs is unprecedented.
It began with the lifting of the 20-year-old ban on recruitment in
nearly all state government departments. The ban on recruitment had
been in force since 1977 when realisation dawned
that there was much overstaffing in the official machinery of
the country's most populous state.
However, this ban was lifted every now and then to accommodate political
appointees in chosen positions, especially with change
of governments. Yet these ad hoc appointments were confined to a handful of positions
and there was never much of a hue and cry over the issue.
As it is now. Perhaps because the stakes were never as high.
Both for the aspirants and the prospective employer,
the stakes are high this time. The desperation on both
sides is writ large in the prices that are being quoted for
the jobs that have been thrown open in a virtual auction. According
to an unemployed youth who has applied at four different departmenets
where at least 2,500 jobs at the class III and IV levels have been
advertised, ''the going rate is anything between Rs 50,000 and Rs
150,000 -- the position, the department and the applicant's caste
determines the rate.''
Thus, if a peon's job is available in the state's Khadi and Village
Industries Department for Rs 50,000 for an upper caste aspirant,
it could go to a scheduled caste candidate for just Rs 30,000.
But the same position in the health department may
cost Rs 70,000 for a forward caste and Rs 50,000 for a scheduled
caste or OBC. In the more lucrative revenue, sales tax
and transport departments, the rate for a job varies between Rs 60,000 and
Rs 80,000. And if it happens to be a babu's chair, the post carries
a price tag of nothing less than Rs 100,000, irrespective of caste
and creed.
Says a 26-year-old unemployed scheduled caste, ''I have
been asked to pay Rs 125,000 for the job of assistant
development officer (a class III level position);
the only way I can get it is by selling the small land
that we have in the family."
He currently makes a living by cycling at least 25 km from a nearby village every day to sell milk in Lucknow, the state capital. His elder brother -- also a government
employee -- is willing to risk sale of the family property so that his sibling can be spared the daily ordeal.
Another dalit applicant for the position of non-medical attendant
in the state health directorate complains, ''I was hoping that under a dalit chief minister we would not have to pay money to get a government job; but all my hopes have been belied with the demand for Rs 70,000, which I am in no position to pay."
He is even more frustrated finding his name somewhere on top
of the waiting list for the job. ''That leaves hardly any hope,'' he laments, ''for the demand has only come down by Rs 25,000. Even if my father disposes off the 3 bighas of land we own in Ballia, we will not have that much money for the job.''
It is not as if all this is going on without the knowledge of those who matter. A minister was recently overheard telling a senior bureaucrat, ''now there
are some 500 posts to be filled; you may take 75 and leave the
rest to me."
When the officer pointed out to the minister
that merit could not be done away, he was told curtly, ''if
you cannot do it I'll tell Mukhya Mantriji to send someone else
in your place who will co-operate.'' The transfer orders arrived for the civil servant within the next 48 hours from the chief minister's office.
This was no isolated case. Kamal Taori, the state's
principal secretary, village industries, and chief executive officer of the UP Khadi and Village Industries Board, was transferred
to another position for the same reason. Among
the others who fell victim to the chief minister's wrath is Anil Swaroop who
paid the price for raising serious objections to the recruitment procedure adopted by
his minister Qazi Mohammadd Moinuddin.
Swaroop, who has a reputation of being a no-nonsense officer, was instantly divested of the charge of inspector general of prisons where he was posted barely two
weeks earlier. Another senior and upright officer sent a detailed note to the chief minister appraising her of the gross irregularities in the special recruitment
drive, but received a transfer order in return.
While Swaroop refuses to talk about his transfer, another senior bureaucrat
names a host of officials who had to face the chief minister's
wrath simply because they found something wrong with the recruitments
in their respective departments: Chandra Pal was thus removed
as principal secretary, labour, S N Shukla as principal secretary, irrigation, S P Gaur as secretary, medical education among others.
Contrary to the much touted view
that caste was the key factor in the transfer and posting of bureaucrats,
it was 'pliability' of the civil servant that played the dominant
role in determining his fate in these cases. Their respective ministers, it is learnt,
termed these officials as 'irritants', and Chief Minister Mayawati
happily issued marching orders.
Highly placed sources allege that Mayawati's willingness in
obliging her ministers in this manner emanates from a clear
electoral motive. "There was a clear understanding between them to
let the ministers fill their coffers by way of these special recruitments,
under which some 16,800 vacanices at the class III and IV levels
have to be filled; by giving them a free hand, she wishes
to make them self-reliant in meeting their expenses at the next
election,'' the sources alleged.
While on one hand, jobs are up for sale in the Uttar Pradesh government,
Mayawati does not tire of making loud proclaimations that the
special recruitment drive is to ensure fulfilment of the reserved
quota whose backlog had led to accumulation of such posts.
Interestingly, UP's employment exchanges include some 11,700 graduates
and 52,000 non-graduates belonging to the scheduled castes.
Most of them are likely to be left out in the present round
of recruitments. The reason is simple. None of the departments
have followed the policy of drawing names from the employment exchanges and advertisements are confined to
major newspapers which do not find their way down to rural
hamlets. Besides, the time given for filing of applications is so
brief that not everyone can apply, leaving the field open
to touts who show the way directly to the concerned minister's
or bureaucrat's pockets.
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