BENGALURU: Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Saturday flagged concerns over hiring of retired persons and the trend of govt officials getting extensions in service or a particular post, remarking they are a setback to others in line.
Delivering the inaugural address at the 25th National Conference of Chairpersons of State Public Service Commission in Bengaluru, the VP said it defies expectations of many in the queue and is against the doctrine of expectation. He said people devote decades to be in a “particular groove” and extensions indicate that some individual is indispensable, though indispensability is a myth. “Therefore, it lies in the domain of public service commissions at the state and the central levels that when they have a role in such situations, they must be firm,” the VP said.
Dhankhar added that in public service commissions, the appointment cannot be driven by patronage or by favoritism. The public service commission chairman or a member can’t be wedded to a particular ideology or an individual as that will be undoing the essence and spirit of the framework of the Constitution, Dhankhar said while speaking at the national conference of chairpersons of state public service commissions in Bengaluru.
Terming the trend of post retirement recruitment “a problem”, he said in some states it has come to be that employees never retire. “Particularly those in the premium services, they get a number of nomenclatures, this is not good… Any largesse of this kind is antithetical to what was visualised by framers of the Constitution,” he said.
On the issue of paper leaks, Dhankhar said the public service commissions need to curb “this menace”, which has become an industry. He added that now young applicants have two fears – one is fear of examination and the second, fear of leakage of question papers.
Dhankhar also raised concerns over the divisive and polarised political climate calling it far more “dangerous than climate change”. He added that if bureaucracy gets ingratiated with a particular dispensation, or emasculated, the nation pays a huge price.