Shillong: The Meghalaya government has “banned adhoc” appointments with direction that appointing authorities would be held accountable for any violations, an official said on Thursday.
“Pay bills of such adhoc employees will not be generated through the employee database system and the treasury officers have to exercise utmost care and vigilance not to entertain such cases,” Commissioner and Secretary Personnel & Administrative Reforms (B) department, R Lyngdoh ordered.
The order also read that any appointing authority who make such appointments will be held responsible for violation of instructions.
“The government has the option of initiating proceedings against the officer and deducting liabilities of the adhoc employees (s) from the salary, pension (if retired) and other entitlements of the appointing authority who had issued the appointing order,” the order specified.
Moreover, the state government has said, appointing authorities of all departments must ascertain vacancies and strictly adhere to the reservation roster.
“These vacancies will be initiated to the Meghalaya Public Service Commission, District Selection Committees and Department Selection Committees for filing them up in a regular manner,” the
order said.
There are various reasons for this order and the most important is the reservation roster system of the state. In fact, the Meghalaya High Court has stopped all appointments in the state for non maintenance of the reservation roster system.
On April 20, 2022, the High Court had cancelled all recruitments, where state reservation policy is applicable, after the state acknowledged before the court of not having a roster system to follow the reservation policy.
According to the state reservation policy, 40 percent of the government jobs are reserved for the Khasi-Jaintia region and 40 percent for the Garo. Another 5 percent is reserved for the Scheduled Tribes of the state and 15 percent for the general category.
However, over the years this policy was not followed and there were arbitrary appointments across departments of the state. This resulted in an imbalance in filling up vacancies.
Moreover, some of the whimsical adhoc and temporary appointments over the years due to political and nepotistic reasons has put huge strain on the state exchequer, so much so that the government is unable to pay salaries like in the case of teachers.
