On a day when Delhi L-G Vinai Kumar Saxena gave away appointment letters to 1,500 newly-appointed Government officials at a mega event at Vigyan Bhawan in the national Capital, the ruling Aam Admi Party (AAP) led Delhi Government Minister Saurabh Bhardwaj strongly hit out at the BJP-led Centre for stalling recruitments in the national Capital for the last nine years.

Bhardwaj, pointed out how the L-G had in fact exposed the Centre’s conspiracy of keeping Government posts vacant and putting the blame on the Delhi Government. “

According to the Raj Niwas officials, the Delhi Education Department or any other Delhi government never ever put up demands for filling vacancies despite huge, glaring and long pending vacancies.

“They always preferred adhocism aimed at favoritism by appointing 1000s of employees on contract, in gross violation of procedures, manuals and court orders. They additionally deployed civil defense volunteers against permanent posts rather than asking for permanent appointments. They systematically subverted systematic recruitments and deprived the people of Delhi of regular Govt job opportunities. Very characteristically they are now trying to cover their deliberate acts of commission and ommission, now that recruitments are being made,” said officials. The appointments letter by Saxena included 324 Principals in Education Department.  According to a statement issued by L-G office, the Directorate of Education alone accounted for as many as 861 new recruitments, whereas in Delhi Fire Services 500 fresh appointments have been made.

 A number of selected candidates are women, Divyangs and from other reserved categories. Earlier, speaking at a function organised by the Delhi government’s Services Department at the Vigyan Bhawan, Saxena congratulated the new appointees, and said a large number of posts of principals have been lying vacant since 2010-2011 and no action was taken before in this regard. He said the recruitment process to fill up vacancies on a permanent basis will continue to remain his priority and the remaining posts will be filled up at the earliest.

The fresh permanent recruitment is in line with the prime minister’s vision of ending adhocism in government departments and providing opportunities to deserving candidates selected in a transparent manner, said a statement from the LG office. Earlier in February, the Lt Governor had provided appointment letters to more than 1,200 appointees.

Criticizing the Arvind Kejriwal government for not filling such a large number of posts for long time, Saxena said that he has constantly been emphasising the need to augment the manpower in Delhi by recruitment on permanent basis.  Both Kejriwal and Saxena have been at loggerheads over range of issues pertaining to their administrative and territorial jurisdiction. 

He said that it was the vision of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to end adhocism in government departments and provide opportunities to deserving candidates selected in a fair and transparent manner.

In a counter allegation, Saurabh Bhardwaj, said the Central Government has been exercising unethical and unwarranted control over the Delhi Services Department, resulting in the stalling of all kinds of government recruitment in Delhi.

“The officers of the Services Department have at several occasions straight up refused to place on record the number of vacant posts despite multiple requests by Delhi Vidhan Sabha citing the control of Central Govt on the department,” the Services Minister said.