Calcutta, Sept. 29: A central government advisory requesting the state to replace interviews with written tests for the recruitment of Group D employees has left the Mamata Banerjee administration in a fix at a time it is planning to recruit 60,000 people in the category before the Assembly polls next year.
In Bengal, Group D employees have traditionally been recruited through "personality tests" or interviews.
Senior Bengal government officials said recruiting 60,000 people through a written test would be time-consuming as lakhs of applications would pour in and it would be very difficult to complete the process before the Assembly elections.
The officials said that unlike interviews, written tests would be open to scrutiny. Allegations have often been made that those close to the ruling party get jobs in the Group D category.
Although advisories are not binding on the state government, the officials said ignoring them could affect the flow of central funds. Modernisation of the state administration is one of the several heads under which the Centre gives funds.
The advisory from the Centre's department of personnel and training, which reached the state government earlier this month, came in the aftermath of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement on Independence Day that interviews would be done away with while making appointments to posts where the process is not required.
The advisory will have an immediate effect on Bengal as Mamata has announced that two lakh people, including 60,000 in the Group D category, would be recruited. Peons, sweepers and security guards are recruited in this category. A Group D employee gets a monthly salary of Rs 12,180.
"Following the advisory, it will be tough for the state to make recruitments through interviews only, which is the practice in Bengal. Making arrangements for the written test for so many applicants will be a time-consuming affair," a Bengal government official said.
The officials said the process of recruitments through a written test would be very difficult to complete before the Assembly elections, slated for summer next year.
"Around 22 lakh applications were received for the recruitment of 37,000 primary teachers this year. So, it can be easily guessed that lakhs of people will apply for the Group D posts, for which those who have passed Class VIII can apply," an official said.
The officials said if a written exam was held, it would become difficult to give jobs to those close to the ruling party. Historically, appointments in the Group D category have been used in Bengal as a tool to give jobs to cadres of the party in power.
In 2009, the Left government had announced that the West Bengal Public Service Commission, not the departments concerned, would make recruitments to the Group D category through written tests. But by then, the Left Front had started losing ground and no recruitment in the category was made between 2009 and 2011, when Trinamul came to power.
The Trinamul government reverted to the old practice of recruiting Group D staff through interviews conducted by the departments concerned.
In 2013, the government appointed around 3,000 Group D employees.
There were allegations that job advertisements were floated in not-so-largely-circulated dailies and without obtaining the permission of the finance department.
"But the government went ahead with the process. It was observed that the majority of the successful candidates were from south Calcutta, a Trinamul bastion," a retired IAS officer said.
To avoid such a controversy, the chief minister had announced that the 60,000 Group D employees would be taken in by a recruitment board, not by the departments.
"Taking away the recruitment authority from the departments is a positive move, but the state government did not make it clear whether the jobs would be given through interviews, where manipulation is easy," an official said.
