The Telangana Unemployed Youth Joint Action Committee has staged day-long fasting protest here on Friday demanding that the State government fill about 2.5 lakh vacancies in various departments and payment of unemployment allowance to about 16 lakh unemployed youth at ₹3,000 per month.
Several unemployed youth led by chairman of the JAC N. Venkatesh participated in the protest and Communist Party of India State secretary Chada Venkat Reddy, president of Telangana Jana Samithi M. Kodandaram, president of National Backward Classes Welfare Association R. Krishnaiah and others expressed solidarity with the protest.
Speaking at the protest, Mr. Krishnaiah alleged that the State government was neglecting the filling of vacancies and sought to know how the administration was being run with about 2.5 lakh vacancies, including over 40,000 retirements. He pointed out that against the promise of a job to every family, the government had failed to give even a job per village during the last six years.
Apart from the existing vacancies, another 40,000 posts were created with the creation of 23 new district, 131 mandal, 30 revenue divisions, 76 municipalities, 7 corporations, 4,383 gram panchayats, 103 police stations, 25 police sub-divisions, 31 police circles and 7 police commissionerates. As against the need to fill about 2.8 lakh posts, the State government could fill only 45,000 jobs during the last six years, mostly with police constables, sub-inspectors of police, teachers, panchayat secretaries, assistant engineers, hostel welfare officers and some Group-II posts.
Stating that the scenes of empty chairs in every government office due to lack of recruitment in spite of retirements every year had become a common scene, TJS president Kodandaram said filling of vacancies, sanctioned posts, would not require any fresh budget allocation since it would be made automatically every year. Due to vacancies, the government was able to save huge funds every year and divert it for other needs.
Mr. Venkat Reddy said the executive would get weakened with every retirement and every vacancy. He observed that the government would not be in a position to fill posts even with promotions after a few years, if it fails to fill vacancies now.
