The Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) has decided to speed up the recruitment process for posts in the health sector, considering the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic situation.
As part of this, a section of the employees have been asked to be present in office, even though there is a lockdown in force.
The recruitments are done separately for health services and the Medical Education Department. While the openings in the former are reported by the District Medical Officers at the respective district level, the posts in the Medical Education Department are reported directly to the PSC State headquarters here.
Currently, top priority is being given to the appointment of health services staff, including Junior Public Health Nurses (JPHN), who are involved in ground-level work related to the pandemic.
“The PSC has issued advice memos for a majority of the vacancies reported from the Health Department. In the commission meeting held on Wednesday, it was decided to give super priority to posts such as JPHN, for which valuation is ongoing. The rank lists for posts for which lists are not in existence currently will be published at the earliest. Even during this lockdown, vacancies for 54 staff nurses were filled by the PSC,” said a PSC official.
The PSC has requested department heads to report vacancies at the earliest. According to PSC officials, the commission is fully prepared to process the upcoming vacancies, especially in the health sector. As part of speeding up the process, the PSC has asked all employees of and above the level of under secretary to be present in office, while 50% of employees of and above the level of section officers to come to office. Below this level, at least one person has to be present in office from each section.
Though the PSC has implemented work from home partially for its employees, none of the examination-related activities, which constitute a majority of the commission’s work, cannot be done that way due to the element of secrecy involved in it. The PSC has decided to redeploy exempted categories, including physically challenged employees and parents of mentally challenged children, to sections where work from home is possible. Internal transfers as part of this are currently being done. With the completion of this process in the next two weeks, the PSC’s works are expected to be speeded up.
