Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah plans quota while outsourcing govt jobs

www.mangaloretoday.com

Bengaluru, July 9, 2023: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said Saturday he wants to introduce reservation in outsourced employment to government posts.

Siddaramaiah was speaking at an event ’Prabuddha Karnataka Janamana Samavesha’ here organised by Janamana Prathishtana and Samatha Adhyayana.

Reiterating his commitment to fill up vacancies, Siddaramaiah said recruitment to government jobs was part of the Congress’ manifesto. "We are committed to filling up vacancies. Until then, we will go for outsourced employment and we are thinking of introducing reservation in this," he said.

Karnataka has 2.55 lakh government jobs vacant against a sanctioned strength of 7.72 lakh posts across 43 departments.

At present, there are 75,474 outsourced employees. The government usually ropes in third-party agencies to provide personnel for Group-C and Group-D posts such as drivers and data entry operators.

In May 2022, the state government had directed all departments to ensure 33% reservation for women in outsourced employment. The then Chief Secretary P Ravi Kumar had issued a circular stating that women are "equally capable" of handling the work normally outsourced to men such as driving, data entry, housekeeping and others.