7th Pay Commission: 42% of total hiring during CY2010-13 was in Indian Railways, reveals panel

Details of jobs created during the first two years of the Narendra Modi government may not be available yet, but the 7th Central Pay Commission (CPC) gives insights of how the Congress-led UPA under the leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recruited Central government employees.

During the four calendars years from 2010 to 2013 coinciding with UPA II, 5,70,825 employees were recruited by the Central government, with 2,40,343 of them, or 42 percent, joining the Indian Railways.

If the Indian Railways and police were to be taken as a combined group, it accounted for about 81 percent of the total hiring, observed the pay panel in its voluminous report.

"The data from ministries/departments with regard to recruitments on or after 01.01.2004 suggests that certain departments which undertake recruitment through their own dedicated Boards/Agencies have shown recruitments of larger numbers," the panel said.

Also, the Central government recruited more than 1 lakh employees every year between 2006 and 2014 for civilian jobs. The hiring almost doubled between calendar years 2006-2009 (2.87 lakh employees) and 2010-2013 (5.70 lakh employees).

However, there is bad news for the Modi government: it would be unable to absorb the swelling numbers entering the job market. 

"The Report of the 'Working Group on Labour Force and Employment Projections' constituted for the Eleventh Five Year Plan estimated that during the period 2012-17 the labour force is projected to increase by 4.46 crore, which translates to an average increase each year of over 89 lakh. This suggests that the Central Government is at best a marginal source for employment generation. The quantum of intake of fresh personnel by the Central Government is an insignificant percentage of the total entrants in India's labour force," says the CPC report.

Here is the department/ministry-wise analysis of the CPC of recruitment trends: