There are lakhs of youngsters waiting for employment in Kerala, which has the highest number of educated people. There is a provision for anyone over fourteen years of age to register their name in the employment exchange. The number of people registered like this itself will be 31 lakh. Even those who have obtained professional degrees are looking for employment. Needless to say, all their hope is generally on the appointments made by the PSC. However, if we check the list of appointments from PSC rank lists, we will find that this number is very low. There are about 3000 major and minor rank lists in the state. The validity of rank lists for uniform posts is one year and for non-uniform posts are three years. Back-door appointments without any regard for these rank lists are rampant.

The protest marches adopting various methods in front of the secretariat to attract the attention of the authorities by those whose names appeared in the rank list often filled tears in the eyes of people with compassionate hearts. A situation where things are possible only if there is political influence should not happen in democratic governance. The reason for mentioning this here is the information that despite the en masse retirement of 16,638 employees from the government service yesterday, there will be no immediate permanent appointment in their entry cadres. A promising opportunity has been created for the unemployed youth. However, we are seeing moves to stop it by saying that there is a financial crisis. It is not difficult to understand that this is to pave the way for temporary appointments.

Half of the vacancies are for teachers. The order for temporary appointments through PTA has been issued in the wake of the reopening of schools. The only relief is that those with names on the PSC rank list will be given preference in temporary appointments. The Chief Minister had announced that an online system would be prepared to notify the PSC of retirement in advance, but this has not been implemented. If it had been implemented, the PSC would not have had to wait for the Heads of Departments to report the vacancies. Delay in finding and reporting vacancies in time is one of the many reasons for delay in recruitment.

Even though 800 people have retired now, the vacancies till June have been filled in advance. Recruitment from the rank list will therefore not be easy. There were 13,975 candidates in the last constable rank list, but only 4029 candidates were appointed. The new rank list of 674 women CPOs has been released but the recruitment process from it has not started. Efforts should be made to fill the existing vacancies as much as possible. The necessary police force should be assigned before talking about women's safety at every possible opportunity. Complaints that there are not enough female police officers have been heard for a long time. The government should be more diligent in PSC recruitment matters. Back-door appointments should be stopped. The government should not pretend that it does not see the unemployed youth.