Universities going slow on reporting vacancies to PSC

The alleged laxity in reporting vacancies to the Public Service Commission (PSC) is likely to stymie the commission’s effort to expedite the staff recruitment to the universities in the State.

Amidst mounting complaints of universities hiring contract employees for performing crucial tasks, including tabulation of marks, the 13 universities have reported only 468 vacancies to the commission so far. This slackness in furnishing details of vacancies will affect the pace of recruitment.

Commission sources told

The Hindu here that about 5.60 lakh candidates had appeared for the written examination held on May 24 and now the preparation of rank list was being completed on a war-footing and it had been decided to publish a rank list of 5,000 candidates within a specific timeframe. But the response from all the universities in vacancy reporting was far from satisfactory. The commission secretary would soon write to university registrars to expedite the process, sources said.

The first Cabinet meeting held on May 25 had given specific directions to all appointing authorities, heads of departments, autonomous institutions, and public sector undertakings to report all existing vacancies within 10 days, but this has not elicited a positive response from the universities.

Contract employees have been manning even important sections and the practice of indefinitely extending their service in violation of norms has given way to widespread complaints. Majority of such appointments were allegedly made without giving adequate publicity and mostly at the behest of political leaders or by the department heads themselves.

On reporting the details of a post to the commission, the appointing authorities would be deprived of the chance for subverting the selection process and having candidates of their choice to fill the vacancies and officers designated for reporting tend to shy away from the task and try to retain it within their ambit, sources said.

Attempts were allegedly on to hush up the details of the temporary posts and avoid PSC recruitment. This was being cited as the prime reason for the poor response. The firm directive from the Cabinet was expected to expose the corruption and nepotism in filling up temporary posts in autonomous institutions, mainly universities, sources said.

Only 468 vacancies

reported from 13 varsities

Posts being filled by

temporary hands