The general election in the country is scheduled between April and May to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha. Just at the onset of elections, the Modi government decided to introduce a 10 per cent additional for the economically weaker section of the general category. But taking a deep look at the numbers as per the Union budget for 2018-19, the central government has been steadily cutting down the jobs by over 75,000 since 2014.
English daily, the Times of India reported that as per the actuals declared in the Union Budget for 2018-19, the number of central employees came down by 75,231 as against their strength on March 1, 2014. As a norm, the central government declares the estimated number of employees for the current year with actuals provided for the previous year and a projection for the next year.
The actual strength of establishment stood at 32.52 lakh including Railways across 55 central ministries departments as per the 2018-19 budget. This means in last four years there was a reduction of 75,231 central government employee's strength as against 33.3 lakh employees as on March 1, 2014. Notably, this number does not include the servicemen in defence services. Since the Modi government came into power the government has claimed to hire additional manpower of around 2 lakh every year. But the numbers show that the actual strength has declined.
One of the major reasons attributed to this fall in the hiring is government's preference to hire employees contractual basis especially support staff like peons and drivers. Moreover, the posts which have been left vacant due to many of the employees retiring have not been filled rather in many cases people have been re-employed after superannuation as consultants.
Among all the departments, Indian Railways has been the biggest loser in terms of manpower; as on March 1, 2018, its manpower had remained at the level of 2010. In 2017, Railways sacked around 23,000 from 13.31 lakh in 2016 to 13.08 lakh employees. In the last budget, the government has not made any projection to increase the manpower of rail staff.
