The last edition of Rozgar Mela before the 2024 general elections are announced will be addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 12. The recruitment drive aims to fill vacancies in Central government offices.
Over 1 lakh appointment letters are expected to be distributed during the event.
The cumulative appointments with the help of the expedited recruitment drive are expected to hover around eight lakh, a shortfall of two lakh appointments against the target of 10 lakh jobs as announced by the Prime Minister in 2022.
On June 14, 2022, Mr. Modi announced that 10 lakh existing Central government vacancies will be filled by December 2023 on a “mission mode.” General elections are due in March-April.
Task force set up
In July 2022, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had constituted a task force comprising officials from five ministries, including Defence, Home and Railways, asking all government departments to state the vacant positions and steps taken to fill those posts.
“So far 11 editions of Rozgar Mela have been held. The last and the 12th edition will be one of the biggest recruitment drive as over 1 lakh vacancies will be filled in one go,” said a senior government official.
The previous Rozgar Mela were held on October 22, 2022 (75,000 appointment letters distributed); November 22, 2022 (71,000 letters), January 20, 2023 (71,000 letters), April 13, 2023 (71,000 letters), May 16, 2023 (71,000 letters), June 13, 2023 (70,000 letters), July 22, 2023 (70,000 letters), August 28, 2023 (51,000 letters), September 26, 2023 (51,000 letters), October 28, 2023 (51,000 letters) and November 30, 2023 (51,000 letters).
On July 27, 2022, the DoPT informed the Lok Sabha that over 7.22 lakh people got permanent Central government jobs in the eight financial years of 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22. The government received over 22 crore applications for these jobs, the reply said. This was one of the last detailed replies provided by the DoPT in Parliament regarding government jobs.
The Railway Ministry informed the Lok Sabha in August 2023 that there were over 2.6 lakh vacancies in various divisions.
The following agencies and bodies recruit candidates on behalf of the Central government: The Union Public Service Commission, the Staff Selection Commission, Railway Recruitment Boards, the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection, Ministries or Departments of the Central government and their attached and subordinate offices for recruitment of staff and National Testing Agency.
According to the DoPT’s annual report for the year 2022-23, during the year 2021-22, the UPSC conducted a total of 16 examinations.
A total of 3,559 candidates were recommended for appointment to various posts for which 29,91,842 applications were received, around 840 applications for each post.
