New Delhi: Total government appointments made through direct recruitment has more than halved during the first seven years of the Narendra Modi government, data submitted in the Rajya Sabha revealed.
The data also showed that the representation of persons from Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) categories through direct recruitment and promotion has declined over these seven years.
Pattali Makkal Katchi MP and former Union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss asked if the OBCs were inadequately represented (made up for less than 27% of posts) in appointments to the Union government between 2014 and 2021.
In response, the minister of state for social justice and empowerment A. Narayanaswamy provided information about the representation of persons from SC, ST and OBC communities based on the information uploaded by the ministries and departments on the Representation of Reserved Categories in Posts and Services in GoI (RRCPS) portal.
Citing the data, the minister said that the representation of OBCs against the total appointments made through direct recruitment has been “consistently above” 27% between 2014-21. The enrolment of OBCs in Higher Education Institutions has been “consistently increasing” since 2014-15, he added.
Direct recruitment more than halved
However, a look at the data on appointments also revealed that when it came to direct recruitment, there had been a sharp fall in overall appointments between 2014 and 2021. The total appointments through direct recruitment more than halved from 1,28,629 in 2014 to 64,073 in 2021. The number of appointments in the SC category dropped from 21,673 in 2014 to 10,200 in 2021. Similarly, the appointments in the ST category fell from 10,843 to 4,573 and those in the OBC category from 40,513 to 19,660 in these seven years.
The data also revealed that during this period, “appointments made through promotion” fell from 1,73,363 in 2014 to 1,40,908 in 2021. The total appointments made through both these modes also declined by nearly a third from 3,01,992 to 2,04,981 in the seven years.
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SC, ST appointments through promotions dropped sharply
In the case of SC and ST appointments, the data showed that there was also a marked drop in the number of appointments made through promotions. Under the SC category, this number came down from 32,599 in 2014 to 24,794 in 2021 while for the ST category it dropped from 14,112 in 2014 to 10,938 in 2021.
Overall, when it came to the representation of SC persons against the total appointments made through both direct recruitment and promotion, the representation dropped from 17.97% in 2014 to 17.07% in 2021. Likewise, the representation of persons from ST communities declined from 8.26% in 2014 to 7.57% in 2021.
With regard to the representation of OBCs against total appointments, the data indicated a decline from 31.50% in 2014 to 30.68% in 2021. Barring 2020, when this representation dropped below the 30% mark to touch 29.21%, in all other years it stayed above that level.
Enrolments in higher education institutions rose
Ramadoss also asked about the enrolment of persons from OBC communities in central educational institutions. The minister said that data provided by the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) showed that the enrolment of students from SC communities has increased by 28% during the seven-year period as it went up from 46,06,666 in 2014-15 to 58,94,700 in 2020-21. For the ST category, the enrolment increased by 47%, as the absolute numbers went up from 16,40,809 in 2014-15 to 24,12,069 in 2020-21. And in the OBC category, the increase was 31.7% as the numbers rose from 1,12,56,849 in 2014-15 to 1,48,21,537 in 2020-21.
The data also showed that a lot more women from SC, ST and OBC communities were enrolling in higher education institutes.