Recruitment for over 2 lakh employees

BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has given approval for recruitment of over two lakh employees in various departments and the highest number of posts sanctioned for the School and Mass Education department.Admitting that large number of vacancies in almost all the Government departments is the primary reason for the low expenditure of budgetary support, Finance Minister Prafulla Ghadei, in his reply to the general discussions on the State budget for 2012-13 on Wednesday, said the Finance Department is liberally considering the proposals for filling up of vacant posts. Financial concurrence has been given for recruitment of over 2.07 lakh employees till the end of December last year. A maximum of 85,850 teacher posts have been sanctioned for the School and Mass Education Department followed by 41,178 posts for the Home Department. Financial concurrence has been given for recruitment of 13,525 staff in Panchayati Raj, 11,445 persons in Revenue and Disaster Management, 11,701 employees in ST and SC Development and 7,400 in Women and Child Development departments. ‘There was a marked improvement in the Government expenditure during the first two quarters of the current financial year despite shortage of staff. The State utilised 33 per cent of the budget as against the last year expenditure of 28 per cent,’ Ghadei said adding, ideally the expenditure should be 30 per cent. Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh charged the Government with inability to utilise Central assistance due to shortage of staff. Alleging that over 1.48 lakh posts are lying vacant even after the ban on recruitment was lifted, he said the Central assistance of ` 341 crore sanctioned under Sarva Sikhya Abhijan for 2010-11 remained unutilised.The Finance Minister said his department had taken a slew of measures to improve the timely utilisation of funds and the results are positive. Usually, the rush of expenditure by Government departments was noticed during the fag end of the financial year. This has been checked to a great extent. The practice of outcome budget has been introduced in all the administrative departments in phases to monitor the utilisation of funds. Besides, IT applications are being adopted for real time management of data and online monitoring of revenue earning and expenditure on a daily basis.  ‘An economically backward state like Odisha needs a bigger budget to meet huge demand from different sectors. However, this will be possible only when the Centre rationalise the tax system and enhance the royalty on minerals,’ he remarked.  Initiating the discussion, Anup Sai of the Congress said the Government had to improve its efficiency to utilise the Central assistance in time.