Tripura minister says Govt has provided 14,000 jobs since 2018 and 16,000 more are in the pipeline

While roughly 20,000 employees have retired from service since 2018, the Government has already arranged for filling more posts through a continuous recruitment process. He said that with the 16,000 jobs currently in the pipeline, nearly 30,000 jobs would be provided in the near future.

However, the minister did not specify a timeline for when these 16,000 jobs would be provided.

His statement came after a question from Congress MLA Gopal Chandra Roy, who enquired about the cumulative number of contractual employees serving in the state government and whether there were plans to regularise them.

The minister said that 1,445 non-permanent employees—836 daily rated workers, 311 contingent workers, 193 casual workers and 105 part-time workers—were serving in the state government.

As for plans to regularise them, the minister said a decision would be made considering the new recruitment policy and legal formalities.

Regularisation rule from Left Front era

Speaking to reporters later, he explained that 1,405 out of these 1,445 non-permanent employees could not be regularised owing to a January 21, 2009, memo—issued during the then Left Front government—that said all such employees hired without concurrence from the finance department would be terminated.

The formula for regularisation of non-permanent employees had evolved through several phases—initially requiring 17 years of continuous service for regularisation until 2005, and then only 10 years of continuous service until 2003. However, the 2009 memorandum mandated that any staff member hired without finance department concurrence would be dismissed, the minister said, adding that the Government could not regularise individuals in violation of existing rules.

Nevertheless, he said the issue of regularisation was not out of the Government’s purview, adding that it had increased non-permanent employees’ salaries and perks.

The minister said, “We are collecting data about them through a special portal. We have collected data on 1,680 such employees to date, and after finalising the data, the state government will review it and make decisions in accordance with the rules and regulations.”

In 2018 the BJP had promised to regularise all contractual employees if voted to power.