Amid recruitment freeze, Govt. will hire professionals to public sector

The Government has decided to permit the recruitment of professionals, including doctors and engineers, to the public sector next year while keeping its limits on enlisting more persons as government employees.

Two separate committees have been appointed to make recommendations on recruiting professionals and ways of limiting the public sector work force.

Earlier, the government decided to freeze public sector recruitment in view of the high expenditure incurred for it.

The Government also took a decision to reduce the retirement age of the public sector employees from 65 to 60 thereby raising concerns among certain sectors including the medical profession about the lack of persons to serve in important areas.

The reduction of the retirement age would force more than 25,000 employees out of the public sector by the end of the year. In addition to the medical sector, the administrative sector, too, would be affected due to the retirements.

A senior official said the unplanned recruitment schemes had caused an imbalance in the public sector. He said recruitment of unemployed graduates was among the schemes that had affected the public sector.

He said a large number of recruitment of minor employees, too, had caused the imbalance.

The official said the Government spent more than Rs 93 billion a month for the payments of salaries for about 1.5 million public sector employees.