Thiruvananthapuram: The Pinarayi Vijayan Cabinet has decided to desist from the ongoing job regularisation of temporary employees engaged in various government department and undertakings. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Council Of Ministers on Wednesday.
Ahead of the assembly election the Left Democratic Front regime intended to regularise apparently an unprecedentedly high number of temporary employees working in state public sector undertakings and government departments.
The abrupt decision is also in response to the Kerala High Court demanding the state government to clarify if the regularisations were being carried out as per established norms.
The court granted the government 10 days to respond.
The court's response on Wednesday was over a petition filed by the Youth Congress against the recent appointments made bypassing the PSC. The plea demanded the cancellation of such appointments and assigning the PSC the task of such recruitments in state-run undertakings.
Wednesay's Cabinet meeting was set to take up more lists of temporary staff that have to be regularised and they included the ones forwarded by the Institute of Human Resources Development (IHRD) and the University of Kerala.
Apparently the Left Democratic Front administration in Kerala has been unnerved by the intensifying protests of PSC rank-holders and the likely electoral backlash over its brazen attempts to give permanent postings to temporary and casual employees.
IHRD employees
Apart from 79 last-grade employees here, the regularisation of many temporary staff including drivers was reportedly on the agenda of the Council of Ministers.
Last-grade staff, whose count is three times more than the sanctioned staff strength, are working in different centres of the IHRD for many years. Currently, there are vacancies in 24 last-grade posts and as many as 79 staff members are waiting to be regularised in these posts.
65 from Kerala University
At a time when the unemployed youth is agitating on the streets of the state capital against timely recruitment by the government, 65 personnel from the Kerala University are awaiting a favourable order on making their jobs secure with a permanent posting.
Though the Public Service Commission is entrusted with the appointments to non-teaching posts even library assistants, drivers, binders, security officers and computer programmers at the university are in line to get their jobs regularised by an executive order of the government. The list includes staff who are working on contract basis and daily wages for 10 years or less.
