Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, December 30
Kickstarting the process of recruitment to 50,000 government posts during the current fiscal, as promised by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, the Punjab cabinet on Wednesday approved restructuring of 10 departments, thus also paving the way boosting their functional efficacy through fresh recruitments and technical upgradation.
The cabinet meeting, held through video conferencing under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister, decided to create new and more relevant posts where required in place of the existing non-essential or antiquated ones, many of which had been lying vacant for prolonged periods. The move also marks a major shift towards modernization of government departments to equip them to meet the contemporary operational challenges.
The Cabinet had on October 14 approved a State Employment Plan 2020-22, to fill vacant jobs in government departments, boards, corporations and agencies in a phased time-bound manner, in fulfillment of the Chief Minister’s promise of providing one lakh government jobs to youth in the remaining term of his government. With the restructuring process, as many of the vacant posts will be done away with.
The 10 Departments to be restructured following the Cabinet decision are: Labor, Technical Education & Industrial Training, PWD (B&R), Animal Husbandry, Fisheries & Dairy Development, Tourism & Cultural Affairs, Local Government, Printing & Stationery, Sports & Youth Service Welfare , Defense Services Welfare, Cooperation Department.
As many 2,375 posts will be abolished / surrendered in these departments, with another 785 to be created in the first go, as part of the restructuring exercise, an official spokesperson disclosed, adding that moving forward, more posts will be created as required.
In the Labor Department, against 204 vacant / irrelevant old posts, 68 new posts will be created for various cadres, including IT, Accounts, Labor Inspector and Legal cadre. It was also decided by the cabinet to consider all posts in Group-D as dying cadre.
The Technical Education & Industrial Training department will see 84 new posts being created against 271 non-essential or vacant posts, while as many as 81 posts of Service Provider Trainers will be re-designated as Group Instructors in the same scale. Of these, 53 posts will be used as Assistant Apprenticeship Advisor (Junior) and the rest as Group Instructors. The posts of Group-D lying vacant since long would be filled by outsourcing.
Under the restructuring proposal okayed for the PWD (B&R) department, the critical design cell will be now headed by a Chief Engineer, supported by Superintending Engineer (DRD), 4 XENs and 12 SDEs. The Design Cell would be responsible for designing of buildings, bridges and roads, to be constructed with latest techniques and technologies. Also, the existing system of quality control will be upgraded by increasing the three regional labs under the Deputy Director Research Lab Patiala. The Quality Assurance Mechanism Cell would consist of Chief Engineer (QA-cum-CVO), SE (QA-cum-SVO), 5 XENs-cum-VO, Deputy Director Research Lab and 10 SDEs.
Apart from this, to handle the establishment cases efficiently amid the increased work load, in place of one Chief Engineer there will now be Chief Engineers duly supported by two Deputy Directors (Administration).
The newly created Legal Cell will handle the manifold increase in litigation, with posts of Senior Law Officer, Law Superintendent, Law Officer, Sr. Assistant Law and Law Clerk approved for the purpose. Further, 35 posts of IT professionals have also been approved, each with a defined role and objective to support and run the IT applications in PWD (B&R).
As a part of restructuring of Animal Husbandry, Fisheries & Dairy Development Department, the creation of 326 posts will help fill a large number of vacancies while doing away with some of the non-essential posts among the existing 625. Of this, 264 will be in Animal Husbandry, 19 in Fisheries and 43 in Dairy Development. Besides, all the vacant Group-D posts shall be considered as abolished.
As per the restructuring plan of tourism, cultural affairs, archeology, museum & archives department, in place of 53 posts, of which many are lying vacant, 20 new ones will be created, while 87 vacant posts, including 67 Group D posts, will be filled through outsourcing.
As a part of its restructuring strategy, the Local Government department has been allowed by the cabinet to create 23 posts against 49 earlier ones.
The cabinet also gave the go-ahead to create four new posts besides filling up 30 posts as a part of restructuring in the Printing and Stationery Department.
Under the restructuring plan of Sports and Youth Services Department, the cabinet gave concurrence to replace 69 non-essential posts with 42 new posts as per requirement, taking into cognisance the importance of coaches for improving the training of sportspersons in the state. The posts of Group-D lying vacant since long would also be filled by outsourcing.
The Cabinet also gave the nod to the Defense Services Welfare Department to create 23 posts, while doing away with 49 posts, under its restructuring proposal to further improve its efficiency and delivery of services.
As a part of restructuring of Cooperation Department, the cabinet accorded approval to increase of 93 posts, including two audit officers, 75 senior auditors, six superintendent grade-2 and 10 senior assistants, for expediting the audit work, while cutting down 120 posts of Inspector Audit against the total approved posts of 774 and one post of driver against three approved posts of drivers.
