Bureaucratic slackness in framing and periodically updating special rules is delaying recruitment to about 200 posts in various departments.
Official sources told The Hindu here that in the absence of the special rules, the Public Service Commission had virtually frozen recruitment procedures to a number of posts ranging from office attendants and cooks to college lecturers, engineers, and doctors.
The officers concerned were allegedly turning a deaf ear to the repeated queries of the commission seeking clarifications on the special rules, mainly on the qualification as well as the age limit for the posts.
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This had forced the commission to indefinitely defer issuing appointment advice to some posts tendered even in 1991, the sources said. The posts of lecturers in chemical engineering, architecture, printing technology, commercial practice, commerce, and electrical engineering in polytechnics under the Technical Education Department were some of them. The same was the case of lecturer posts in disciplines such as dance, painting, sculpture, mridangam, applied art, kathakali, and violin in music colleges under the Collegiate Education Department.
A number of posts in government ayurveda colleges were also remaining vacant, including the posts of panchakarma assistant and pharmacy technician. As the existing special rules had provision only to appoint a clinical psychologist in the Neurology Department, the appointment of a clinical psychologist in the Medical Education Department was in limbo.
Repeated efforts of the commission to persuade the government to frame the special rules had not yielded any response. The sources said the delay in framing and updating the rules was being used for making temporary appointments in many departments. Though the government had warned against making such appointments, the absence of rules could be cited as a convenient reason and it cannot be challenged too.
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Many department heads were allegedly using it as an opportunity to appoint candidates of their choice. Though the system had set the ground for corrupt practices, no corrective measures had been taken so far to frame the rules, the sources said.