1.25 lakh contract employees across multiple departments
With more than 1.8 lakh permanent posts unfilled in Haryana, the state government’s operations are supported by roughly 1.25 lakh contract workers.
As a matter of fact, contract workers are heavily involved in staffing a number of vital sectors, such as public health engineering (PHE), health, education, power, and urban local bodies (ULB).
Data revealed that the Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam Limited (HKRNL) had enrolled close to 1.05 lakh contractual workers. About fifteen thousand work in the Health Department, thirteen thousand in the Power Department, eight thousand in the ULB Department, eight thousand in the PHE Department, five thousand in the Haryana Shehari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP), and five thousand in the universities.
Over 14,000 guest educators who work in the Education Department on a contractual basis are also employed by the department, even though only 5,000 of the department’s contractual employees are registered with the HKRNL. In addition to them, there are at least 2,000 contract workers in different departments who are either directly employed by the departments or registered under the HKRNL.
There are over 2.7 lakh regular employees in Haryana, compared to approximately 4.5 lakh sanctioned posts. In actuality, the number of regular employees has decreased over time despite a notable rise in the population. Subhash Lamba, head of the All India State Government Employees Federation, claimed that in 1980, the number of employees in the Haryana government was approximately 4 lakh, compared to the population of 1.25 crore. This number has since decreased to 2.7 lakh for a population of approximately 2.9 crore.
Nonetheless, a high-ranking government official asserted that the hiring procedure for thousands of government positions—which had been postponed because of the model code of conduct for the Lok Sabha elections—was being accelerated. He said that thousands of workers would be hired by several government departments over the course of the following three months, helping to alleviate the staffing shortfall in these areas.