Employment exchanges spend Rs 20 crore to fill 902 vacancies
Indian Expres, May 3, 2006
A recent report on employment exchanges in Delhi shows that in the
last five years only 902 candidates out of the 5 lakh who registered
were given jobs through the exchanges. The report, on the State of
Governance in Delhi by the Centre for Civil Society, reveals that
these 902 placements were made at a cost of Rs 20 crore. In other
words, each placement cost the government a whopping Rs 2.3 lakh.
These were made by the 20 employment exchanges in Delhi where
approximately 250 government staff work. In 2000 they made 123
placements, in 2001 only 48 placements were made, in 2002 the number
rose to 138. After a spike in 2003 to 426, placements fell to 167 in
2004. On average, for every staff member barely one placement was made
every year.
However, it is not the staff at the employment exchanges who are to
blame. In an era where both the private sector and government
enterprises manage their own recruitment work, there is little that
comes the way of employment exchanges. The exchanges are not meant to
cater to the private sector. Initially their main activity was to make
placements with public sector undertakings. Today the Staff Selection
Commission, the Railways Recruitment Board, the Banking Service
Commission and other recruiting agencies do the job for PSUs. It is
not surprising that only stray cases of lower level jobs come the way
of employment exchanges.
A lot of time and effort is spent registering with these
exchanges. Over the last five years, from 2000 to 2004, when these 902
placements were made, the number of people who registered with these
20 exchanges was an amazing 5,39,734. To register with an employment
exchange in Delhi it is required that one has been a resident of Delhi
for at least a period of three years. Proof of residence in the form
of ration cards issued at least a year before, or inclusion of name in
the electoral list has to be provided. In addition, a certificate of
educational qualifications from an institution in Delhi has to be
provided.
This problem is not restricted to Delhi. According to the Annual
Report of the Ministry of Labour, 2005-06, the Directorate of
Employment runs 947 employment exchanges in the country with a total
staff strength of 2527. The data on placements made by all exchanges
is not easily available, but what is available, is similar to what is
reported for Delhi. For example, statistics from the Vishakhapatnam
District Employment Exchange show that in 2001 while the live
registrations of the candidates for technical and unskilled jobs was
82,871, the number of vacancies was 246 and placements were only
67. In the clerical category, while the live register showed 1,51,933
candidates, the number of vacancies notified during 2001 were 112 and
placements were 50.
While the government is talking about redefining the role of the
employment exchange to find more work for the staff and
computerisation for better information flow and modern methods, there
is actually a need to question the very need for the government running
employment exchanges when both the private sector and various
recruitment agencies of the public sector appear to be doing a much
better job. The impact of employment exchanges does not justify the
expenditure on them. It is a blessing that the money budgeted for the
Directorate of Employment does not get spent. In the Ninth Five Year
Plan the Delhi government was able to spend only Rs 2 crore out of the
Rs 3.5 crore available.
Looking ahead, at the very least, the Delhi Government can cancel the
construction of a new Employment Exchange building at Daryaganj
expected to cost Rs 265 lakh. It can also stop going ahead on spending
Rs 250 lakh to build a computerised system to help registration. The
first best policy would be to shut down all employment exchanges. If
Delhi was to spend an additional Rs 4 crore on building infrastructure
every year, it would be able to create more than the 200 jobs a year
that the spending on employment exchanges does.
The lesson to be learnt from the Delhi story is that it is time to
wind up the Directorate of Employment. The Directorate of Employment
probably had a legitimate role when it was set up at the end of the
Second World War, in July 1945, with the objective of resettling
soldiers returning from war. But today other than providing employment
for its own staff, its impact is negligible. The Rs 3666 crore
allocated to the Directorate of Employment in the Tenth Plan was
serious wasteful expenditure. Instead of restructuring and reloacting
employment exchanges, the Eleventh Plan should aim at shutting them
down and relocating the 2527 government staff working in them.
--------