Letter by Shri C Srikumar, General Secretary, All India Defence Employees Federation (AIDEF) to the Defence Minister
04/1004/MIN/AIDEF/2023 13.02.2023
To
Shri Rajnath Singh Ji,
Hon’ble Defence Minister
Govt of India
South Block,
New Delhi – 110001
Sub: Filling up of 2,64,706 vacancies of Defence Civilian Posts lying in the Defence Establishments – Reg.
Respected Sir,
The Hon’ble Prime Minister of India has announced that the Govt will provide jobs to 10 lakh youth within one year in all the Govt Departments. The unemployed youth of this country are anxiously waiting for the employment notifications in this regard. In the Defence Establishments thousands of Trade Apprentices are trained under the Apprentices Act 1961.
The Govt spent huge money for training the apprentices in various trades and after completion of the training, their training go waste since they are not provided job in the industry where they are trained. The Hon’ble Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, in a reply given in the Rajya Sabha to unstarred question No.127 answered on 02.02.2023 has stated that at present, 9,79,327 posts are lying vacant in the 78 Central Govt Departments. Out of this 2,64,706 Civilian posts are from the Ministry of Defence alone. You will appreciate that there is an acute shortage of manpower especially Skilled manpower in all the Defence Establishments and the Administration/Directorate of these Establishments instead of taking action for recruitment of filling up these vacancies are resorting to large scale outsourcing and that too in sensitive / permanent and perennial jobs. The Contractors to whom such outsourcing task is given they bring qualified / untrained persons by paying less wages to them and ultimately the quality of the work is compromised and the Contract workers are being exploited. Recently in one of the Ordnance Factory one of the sensitive section i.e. 4 x 4 Plant in Shell-4 section was given on contract and the Contractor has violated all the Safety norms and rules resulting in a major fire accident when the Factory was working in Night shift. The damage happened to the Plant & Machinery of this factory is not yet known.
Like this there are several incidents where the sensitive jobs were outsourced by the Administration and the quality and safety norms were compromised. In another case, an Ex-Contract worker was caught for passing on sensitive Defence information to the ISI Agents.
Sir, Govt being a model/good employer cannot resort to outsourcing of permanent and perennial jobs and allow corruption and exploitation in such type of outsourcing and contractorisation. It is therefore essential that the posts lying vacant in all Defence Establishments needs to be filled up through the regular employment process. The commitment given by the Hon’ble Prime Minister to fill up 10 lakh vacancies in Central Govt includes the 2,64,706 posts lying vacant in the Defence Ministry. It is therefore requested that the Hon’ble Defence minister may kindly intervene in the matter and arrange to issue instructions to all the Directorates /Head Quarters under the Ministry of Defence/DDP/DDR&D to immediately take steps to fill up the above mentioned posts lying vacant. While doing so the eligible casual/contract workers who are working for years together may be first absorbed in those vacancies, and as a one time measure through the candidates awaiting for Compassionate Appointment after the death/medical invalidation of the Defence Civilian Employees of various Defence Establishments including Ordnance Factories.
The remaining vacancies may be filled up from amongst the trained Trade Apprentices on Seniority basis and thereafter by publishing employment notification to fill up the remaining vacancies.
This step will go a long way for reducing unemployment in the country and also for utilizing the skill available with the trained Trade Apprentices for the development of the Nation. An earlier and favourable action is expected from your honour.
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely
C.SRIKUMAR