Calcutta, June 30: Mamata Banerjee today announced a plan to hire 1.2 lakh peons and clerks, ending a decade-old informal freeze on such mass recruitment that had bled the state coffers and suggesting that she is more Left than the Left when it comes to replicating profligate policies.

"We have decided in the cabinet today that we will recruit 2 lakh people to the vacant posts of teachers and Group C and Group D government employees. There will be 70,000 teachers, 60,000 Group C employees and 60,000 Group D employees," the chief minister said at Nabanna.

The recruitment of teachers is unlikely to be questioned per se - although quality has been a source of concern - but the trend elsewhere has been to outsource low-skilled jobs that peons and lower-division clerks do.

However, such is the spell of government jobs in industry-starved Bengal that no Opposition party is expected to commit hara-kiri by questioning the decision to add to the bloated government machinery, especially in the run-up to the Assembly elections next year.

The numbers listed by Mamata add up to 1.9 lakh, not 2 lakh as she said. Initial estimates of the expenses on account of the recruitment drive add up to Rs 304 crore a month (Rs 154 crore on teachers, Rs 84 crore on Group C and Rs 66 crore on Group D.)

The Bengal government spends nearly Rs 4,000 crore every month on salaries and pensions, which means that Mamata's plan would inflate the wage bill by over 7.5 per cent.

Although the Left was known for doling out government jobs in the absence of other employment avenues, it had quietly applied the brakes on mass recruitment of low-skilled employees in 2004-05.

"We stopped indiscriminate recruitment. The recruitment of Group C and D staff was restricted only to departments where they were acutely needed," said a former minister in the Left cabinet.

Mamata also announced an increase in monthly remuneration for 1.3 lakh civic police from Rs 2,800 to Rs 5,500. Increasing the paltry wage in itself cannot be criticised but in the absence of activities to create assets or generate revenue, such benevolence leaves the state with little for development projects where they are badly needed.

Already, some Opposition leaders have speculated - in private till tonight because none wanted to be seen as opposing the recruitment drive - that the additional funds given under the new formula of the Finance Commission would be squandered on the non-productive task of hiring peons, sweepers and clerks.

The other fear is the drive is a ploy to shower benefits on political loyalists through an opaque recruitment system, a former minister said.

"The chief minister wants to create a feel-good atmosphere ahead of the polls. As lack of industrialisation curbs job creation, she is filling up posts lying vacant for the past 15 years," an official added.

According to sources at Nabanna, the state government has a sanctioned strength of nearly 5.5 lakh employees, the majority of whom are in Group C and Group D. Currently, the state government has nearly 3.25 lakh employees and the vacancies are mainly in the Group C and D categories.

"The requirements of the government have changed over the past three decades. Computers have been introduced and, of late, several responsibilities have been outsourced. This is why the relevance of the employees in Group C and Group D have decreased and the vacant posts did not hinder the government's day-to-day work," said an official.

"In most government offices, including Nabanna, private agencies have been hired for cleaning and housekeeping. Why do we need so many Group D employees now?" asked the official.

The officials said the recruitment of teachers was needed. Under the Right to Education Act, the student-teacher ratio should be 30:1 and the state is short of the prescribed mark.