State Cabinet sub-committee looking into the long pending demand for regularisation of contract and outsourced employees has decided to refer various views expressed on the matter to the Advocate General.
Given the biggest hurdle to the regularisation of contract employees being the Supreme Court judgment in the case pertaining to State of Karnataka Vs Umadevi, 2006, government wants to examine all aspects and evolve certain guidelines. The apex court had ruled out regularisation on the ground that the appointment of contract/outsourced employees itself was based on conditional notification.
Tasked with implementing the key election promise, the Cabinet sub-committee headed by Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu sought views of Secretaries of Finance, Health, Education, Woman Development and Child Welfare, Panchayat Raj. It also decided to apprise itself of cases pending in various courts on regularisation of contract employees.
The consensus among officials however was that regularisation of the above categories of employees should be conditional rather than absolute. Contract and outsourced employment if regularised would go down as backdoor entry into government service unlike in a regular competitive recruitment process, they said.
Some senior secretaries, however, suggested that while issuing a regular notification for these posts, existing contract/outsourced employees could be given weightage based on their service, age relaxation to have a mix of contract/outsourced employees and direct recruits.
According to sources, regularisation of about 40,000 contract employees and 60,000 outsourced employees in various departments and corporations would roughly cost the exchequer a burden of Rs. 4,000 crore. About 40 to 50 per cent of those employees are in Medical and Education departments. Of 40,000 contract employees, 14,000 are in government departments and the rest in public sector corporations.
Among 60,000 outsourced employees, about 42,000 are in government departments and rest in corporations as per rough estimates.
However to get a clear picture, the Cabinet sub-committee directed the Finance department to seek information from all departments about the education, age, community, experience profile of all the contract and outsourced employees and the financial implications to the government if their services are to be regularised.
It also sought the break-up of financial burden based on the present scales and the 10{+t}{+h}Pay Revision Commission scales.
The committee also instructed the Finance department to prepare uniform guidelines for appointment of contract and outsourced employees in future to rule out discretionary appointments.
The committee will meet next in the first week of May.
