Tamil Nadu: Opposition slams government over proposed Staff Rationalisation Committee

Chennai: Opposition parties, including the DMK and PMK, on Thursday opposed the Tamil Nadu government’s proposed move to constitute a Staff Rationalisation Committee to identify unnecessary positions in the government service.

In a statement, DMK working president and leader of Opposition M.K. Stalin said the government should first focus on filing vacant positions in all departments in the state.

“A suspicion arises if the government has an ulterior motive to scale down the number of permanent government employees by going in for a staff rationalisation panel,” he said in a statement, referring to reports that the Cabinet has reportedly given its approval for setting up a Staff Rationalisation Committee.

Speaking in the same vein, PMK founder S. Ramadoss said the objective was to abolish a majority of positions and fill the rest either through outsourcing or contract employment.

“It is not the hallmark of a good administration to abolish existing government jobs instead of creating new ones,” he said in a statement.

Hitting out at the reported objective of the panel (to slash revenue expenditure), he said increasing the revenue instead was the way out. While there were five lakh vacancies in the government, no effort has been made to fill it, and through the new panel all such positions will now be “abolished,” he alleged.