The government on Thursday told the Rajya Sabha that there has been a reduction in number of vacancies in various departments of the central government. Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh said filling up of vacancies in the government was a continuous process and efforts were being made to reduce them further. “The government is already working in this direction. If you go by the vacancy figures, the percentage of the vacancy strength has been constantly reducing over the past five to six years.

“When this government came in, in the year 2013-14, ending March 31, 2014 before the government took over, the vacancy percentage was 16.2 per cent. The successive year it is 11.57 per cent. Then in 2015-16 it is 11.52 per cent, then in 2016-17 it is 11.36 per cent. In fact, the record is better in the central government than many of the states,” he said.

Mr Singh said the record in the central government was far better than Karnataka where he said it had gone down from 27.3 per cent in 2014-15 to 32.56 per cent in 2018-19.

He also informed the House that steps to fill up almost 4 lakh vacancies in central government departments was underway and would be filled up by 2020.

The minister also pointed out that the Congress had claimed in its manifesto for the recent Lok Sabha polls that it will fill up the 4 lakh vacancies in the central government departments and the PSUs.

But, he said, the party did not mention that the process for filling up the vacancies had already started during the last NDA regime.

Mr Singh said there is a total vacancy of 6,83,823 in all departments of central government, out of which almost half 3,89,069, almost 4 lakh, were already in the process of being filled up in the beginning of the year.

“All of 4 lakh vacancies in central government and PSUs, judiciary and Parliament will be filled up before March 2020.

But the catch is that the process of filling the vacancies had already been in the process. So we are already pro-active in filling up of vacancies,” the minister said.

In his written reply, the minister said vacancies in Central Government Ministries/Departments, their attached and subordinate offices arise due to retirement, resignation, voluntary retirement, promotion, transfer, transfer on deputation, termination of service, dismissal from service, death etc.

Based on the vacancies reported by the user Departments, the SSC has started recruitment process to fill up 1,05,338 posts during the year 2019 and 2020, the minister said.

“During 2017-18, the Centralised Employment Notifications (CENs) for 1,27,573 combined vacancies of various Group C and Level-1 posts were notified by the Ministry of Railways  For new and future vacancies to arise in two years’ time, another five CENs covering 1,56,138 vacancies of various Group C and Level-1 posts have been issued in 2018-19.

“Thus, recruitment process to fill up 3,89,069 vacancies has already started,” the minister said.

To reduce the recruitment cycle, some recruiting agencies have switched over to computer based on-line test and interview for non-gazetted posts has been discontinued, he said in a written reply.

The minister also said provisional appointment is being made pending verification of antecedents of the candidates.