"Lumbini and Bagmati provinces have only recently issued vacancy notice"
Last year, Karnali Province requested the federal government for
recruitment of 312 staff for its various agencies through the Public Service
Commission.
Staff crunch has affected the works of several
government agencies in the province. However, the commission refused to
entertain the idea of recruiting staff for provincial government agencies from
Kathmandu. The response from the commission was understandable, given that it
had faced widespread criticisms when it had tried to recruit over 9,000
employees at the local level at the instruction of the federal government.
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388 Assistant Level vacancies at Bagmati Province, Province Lok Sewa Aayog for various positions
Karnali Province requires over 25,000 employees for its various agencies
to function smoothly, according to a survey. But the province currently has
only 15,000 government staff.
“The shortage of technical staff has
particularly put us in a difficult situation. Without their knowledge and
expertise we are having difficulty taking policy decisions and inviting tender
for development projects,” said Keshav Prasad Upadhyay, information officer at
Chief Minister’s Office in Karnali Province.
According to the
constitution, a provincial government should recruit staff for its agencies
through its own public service commission. Karnali Province has yet to appoint
the office-bearers in its public service commission that was formed a year
ago.
It is not just Karnali Province that is reeling under the
shortage of government staff. It is a problem that has been affecting all
seven provinces.
In Lumbini Province, the first one among the
provinces to set up its public service commission, the move to fill the staff
vacancy has landed in court.
The provincial public service
commission had issued a vacancy notice for 125 staff last month. But soon the
notice was challenged by some government employees at the High Court, Butwal,
and the Supreme Court.
The plaintiff party has argued that the
vacancy should have been for the Grade 6 civil servants instead of the Grade
7. They have demanded that the commission initiate a promotion process and
open competition to fill the vacant posts.
“The Supreme Court has
invited both sides for a hearing on December 2. As for the High Court, it had
issued a show-cause order which we have already furnished,” said Dilaram
Bhattarai, chairperson of Public Service Commission, Lumbini.
Rajendra
Thapa, secretary at the Chief Minister’s Office of Lumbini Province, says the
provincial government had asked the commission to appoint doctors and
engineers.
“We are facing a shortage of doctors amid the Covid-19
pandemic. The province is also lagging behind in the implementation of
development projects due to the lack of engineering staff. So we had asked the
commission to start the recruitment process,” said Thapa.
"Lumbini
and Bagmati provinces have only recently issued vacancy notice"
The
Public Service Commission, Bagmati, has also issued a vacancy notice for a
number of posts in provincial and local government offices. But the
appointment process has not begun yet.
Other provinces, meanwhile,
are yet to take any step towards staff recruitment, although the concerned
provincial and local governments have long been complaining about the staff
shortage.
Bhattarai, the chairperson of Public Service Commission,
Lumbini, says the problem of staff shortage would not have been so bad had the
federal government fulfilled its commitment of adjusting the existing
government staff at the provincial and local levels.
According to
the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration, 40,409 government
staff were adjusted in federal government offices while 14,659 and 31,043 were
adjusted in provincial and local government offices.
Provincial
governments are also struggling in the absence of the federal civil service
law based on which the provincial and local governments are supposed to
introduce their law concerning government services.
“Without the
federal civil service law, we cannot have our own set of laws to govern the
government services including staff facilities,” Bhattarai said.
For
now, the Public Service Commission, Lumbini, has decided that the newly
appointed officers will be based on the existing civil service law of the
federal government.
source: the kathmandu post, 24 November 2020
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