Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma today admitted that his administration does not know exactly how many unfilled job vacancies there are in the various government departments.
Conrad faced criticism for this from opposition MLAs.
The subject was raised by Umroi MLA George Lyngdoh during question hour.
The CM, in his defence, said that he wanted to be responsible and provide an accurate number because if he failed to do so he may be accused of misleading the house.
“Vacancies and posts change during the course of time,” Conrad said. “If I were to give a number, it should be the latest number but the exercise to collect this huge amount of data is in process.”
Giving a sense of scale, Conrad said that there are more than 60 government departments, 63 directorates, 12 Deputy Commissioner offices, six Sub-Divisional Officer offices, 46 blocks and five Meghalaya Houses dotted around the country.
This did not wash with Rangsakona MLA Zenith Sangma, who accused the government of intentionally avoiding having to provide the information to the public.
The issue of unfilled vacancies often comes to the fore, with several departments short of staff or filling the gaps with contractual employees.
Zenith alleged that the government has kept the issue in abeyance without appointing the youths to these jobs, depriving them of a livelihood and that is why the CM is intentionally avoiding to provide the information.
Chokpot MLA Lazarus Sangma questioned why these vacant posts have not been filled.
The CM said that different recruitment boards have different processes and that, right now, recruitment for more than 3,000 people is going on.
“We had a lot of challenges, some due to Covid, where we couldn’t have exams or any interviews. There were a lot of restrictions, so that added to our problem but the process is on to fill them,” said Conrad.
Meanwhile, Mawsynram MLA Himalaya Shangpliang was concerned why an advertisement was called to fill 77 posts for peons in the Secretariat.
“Why was there an advertisement to fill vacant posts when the government already has 123 casual peons in place since 2013?” he asked.
