The Hindu : National : Minority share in government jobs goes up

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Minority share in government jobs goes up

Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI: Without reservation or any relaxation in eligibility criteria, minority share in recruitment for government jobs has registered an increase over the past two years. This, according to officials in the Ministry for Minority Affairs, nails the lie that minority presence in government service is low because of lack of eligible candidates.

According to the Ministry, 6.92 per cent of all those recruited in government service in 2006-07 were minorities and that figure went up to 8.65 per cent the following year, courtesy the Prime Minister’s New 15 Point Programme for the Welfare of Minorities. The data indicates an increasing trend in the recruitment of minorities in ministries and departments of the Central government, the Ministry informed Parliament in the last session.

Plugging loopholes

Announced in June 2006, the New 15 Point Programme was aimed at plugging the loopholes in the system identified by the Sachar Committee Report on the Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community in India.

As part of the programme , the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) issued revised guidelines in January 2007 to all Central ministries and departments for giving special consideration to minorities for recruitment in government service. Since there is no reservation policy for minorities, the ‘consideration’ suggested by DoPT included having minority representation in interview committees and better dissemination of information regarding vacancies in minority concentrated areas.

Though the Sachar committee report focused on Muslims and found that their share in government jobs never exceeded five per cent, the data provided by the Ministry pertains to all minorities as the government officially does not collect religion-specific data.

However, given that Muslims form the largest minority, the government estimate is that they would reap 75 per cent of the benefit of any measure aimed at minorities. “The New 15 Point Programme is aimed at all minorities and not the Muslims alone,” an official said.

Of the 70-odd central ministries and departments from which the Ministry has collected information on minority recruitment for 2006-07 and 2007-08, at least half-a-dozen had not taken any initiative in this direction. These include the Ministries of Steel, Overseas Indian Affairs, Civil Aviation, New & Renewable Energy, Tribal Affairs, Chemicals & Fertilizers, Food Processing Industries, besides the Departments of Heavy Industry and Drinking Water Supply. Barring the Ministries of Steel and Food Processing Industries, all others had recruited people during the two years.

The central para-military forces have been particularly pro-active with 2,700 of the 28,450 recruits in 2006-07 being minorities. The next year, 4,905 of the 49,606 recruits were minorities. This, say officials, is a significant achievement in view of the allegation that the CPMFs composition is such that it fails to instil confidence among minorities during communally volatile situations.

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