The State Cabinet on Wednesday decided to halt regularising temporary employees with more than 10 years of service in various government institutions.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the decision was political. It was aimed at depriving Opposition parties of ammunition to target the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in the Assembly elections run-up. The Cabinet decided not to play into the Opposition's hands.
Mr. Vijayan requested remaining temporary workers due for regularisation not to feel let down. They would not lose their jobs. The LDF would regularise them when voted to power in the next Assembly elections.
The government had regularised persons who had worked on meagre daily wages for a decade and more in State-run institutions outside the Kerala Public Service Commission’s (PSC) purview. However, the Opposition portrayed the altruistic act as “illegal backdoor appointments.”
The provisional employees were ill-suited for new jobs and experienced in their respective fields. The government could not abandon them and their families to chance. It set minimum 10 years of service as the norm for regularising them.
The Opposition had provoked a section of PSC rankers to go on the warpath against the government. They had attempted to stoke youth anger by lying that the regularisation measure would whittle down employment chances via the PSC.
The Opposition had unabashedly seized on the insecurities of unemployed youth to wring political advantage. They had sensed a political opportunity after other concerted recriminatory campaigns against the government floundered.
The Opposition gave false hope to the youth by lying that the government could revive obsolete PSC rank lists. Some anguished youth, misled by Opposition plots, staged "funeral processions" in front of the Secretariat believing the government had done them some injustice.
Mr. Vijayan asked the youth not to fall prey to intrigues of those who seek to wager their future to reap political advantage.
The government had opened new avenues of employment for youth via the PSC. The Cabinet had created 3,051 posts in various departments. Mr. Vijayan pegged the number of permanent posts made by the LDF government at 30,000. The government had employed more than 50,000 people during its term, including temporary employees, he said.
