Sharp fall in recruitment of minorities in central govt services

NEW DELHI: Recruitment of minorities in central government services fell from 11.56% of total hires in 2010-11 to just 6.89% in 2012-13, according to data collected from nearly 70 Union ministries and departments. The government, which released the data in reply to a Parliament question on Thursday, has blamed the falling recruitment levels of minority candidates, which depends on the number of applications received and percentage of qualifying candidates from the community, on absence of minority job quota, their dependence on traditional/religious education, low literacy levels, non-availability of suitable candidates and low scores of minority aspirants in written examination. According to data capturing central government employees appointed across 71 ministries and departments in 2010-11, 2,03,798 candidates were recruited through the year, of which 23,567 belonged to the minority community. The statistics, cited by minister of state for personnel V Narayanasamy in his written reply to a query in the Rajya Sabha, show that the maximum number of minority candidates were recruited that year by the ministry of mines (7,802), followed by department of financial services (4,702) and ministry of home affairs (4,539). In comparison, data put out by 70 central ministries and departments shows that 22,674 minority candidates were recruited during 2012-13, which works to just 6.89% of the total 3,28,723 candidates hired through the year. While the total recruitments increased by nearly 1.25 lakh between 2010-11 and 2012-13, the number of successful minority candidates dipped by 893. The maximum recruitment of minorities in 2012-13 were in the department of financial services (5,844), ministry of railways (4,210), ministry of home affairs (3,518) and central paramilitary forces (3,483). As many as eight ministries/departments accounted for nil recruitment of minority candidates among the total candidates hired by them in both 2010-11 and 2012-13. In his reply to the Rajya Sabha query, Narayanasamy said initiatives were taken to boost minority recruitment in central government services. These included instructions issued to all appointing authorities on September 17, 2011, making it mandatory for them to include one member each from the SC/ST and minority community in selection boards for making recruitment to 10 or more vacancies. The instructions required the appointing authorities to give wide publicity to appointments in government, public sector banks and financial institutions. Advertisements were to be issued in regional languages, apart from English and Hindi. For Group C posts, information regarding vacancies must be disseminated through schools and colleges, according to the instructions. The appointing authorities were also asked to distribute vacancy circular in local language in areas having a concentration of minority community. TOI