by the Editor: Siddharth Sehgal

The protest in Bihar over result discrepancies of Railway Recruitment Board shows how the government has failed miserably on jobs promise. Without the government’s initiative, the potential to have a well-rounded growth in the economy will be wasted away. The whimsical, un-planned policy has either led to inefficiencies or job and economic loss.

Corruption, delays, and negligence in government recruitment are not new, it has plagued our system for a very long time but due to Covid’s impact and half-baked policies that tend to favor some private players these inadequacies in our system are particularly biting. There was a time when there used to be a flurry of vacancies in different companies such as  BSNL, NTPC, ONGC, etc, now these companies are either struggling or prepared to be sold to private investors. In a country like India, where we have huge gaps in wealth distribution, capitalism appears in its worst forms.

This private enterprise has a typical mindset to reduce costs and increase bottom lines, at the cost of job loss and innovation. Rather than improving our inefficient system, governments in the name of nationalism are denting the nation’s interest.

We should neither follow blind commercial interest nor follow a purely centralized system but we should seek a middle way where competitive private enterprises exist side by side government entities. Improvement in the recruiting process, transparency, timely results, and appointments in empty government positions will drive the engine of the economy. State PSUs are some of the worst nightmares of government job aspirants and UPSC is becoming a distant dream, year after year. Poor economic policies and the pandemic have already wiped out many prospects and government aversion to spending is only making matters worse. It should seek to bring immediate relief to millions of students by conducting timely and transparent examinations and filling out much-needed vacancies.

Unfortunately, currently, we lack such leadership at every level of our society that can think beyond electoral politics and give the country a long-term vision. Just as Railways were brought to a screeching halt during the first wave when millions of migrant labor were forced to walk home along the railway tracks and roads, a time when our public transport system was badly needed. Similarly, those dreaming of government jobs such as Railway should realize the ground reality; those jobs will not come again. Unfortunately, for many of those unemployed, some dreams will never come true.