Labour Minister Santhosh Lad doesn't know the number of existing vacancies but he hinted at automation that would cut short the staff strength.
Published Mar 22, 2025 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Mar 26, 2025 | 3:35 PM
According to the Karnataka government's Department of Personnel and Administration Reforms (DAPR) data, 2,76,386 posts are lying vacant.
Synopsis: Even after almost two years in power in Karnataka, the Congress government has not taken any concrete steps to fill the vacancies in various departments. There are also allegations of corruption in the state PSC.
In 2023, the Congress party came to power in Karnataka with a promise to slash the unemployment rate by filling vacancies in government departments.
The grand old party’s election manifesto boasted that it would fill all vacancies in various government departments and clear the backlogs in appointments.
However, activists noted that over two-and-a-half lakh vacancies are still existing in various departments and appointments were made to less than 50,000 posts.
In its election manifesto, the Congress had promised to fill all approved vacancies in government departments, including positions for teachers and staff in government and aided schools and colleges, as well as all backlog vacancies — Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC), and minorities — along with those in the Kalyana Karnataka region, within one year.
While the Opposition BJP alleged that the Karnataka State Public Services Commission (KPSC) was functioning without government monitoring, the Congress-led state government said it has initiated a phase-wise appointment process.
A page of the Congress manifesto for the 2023 elections that promised to fill all vacancies.
According to the Karnataka government’s Department of Personnel and Administration Reforms (DAPR) data, 2,76,386 posts are lying vacant out of the 7,80,748 approved jobs.
There are a total of 16,017 vacant Group A posts, 16,734 Group B posts, 1,66,021 Group C posts and 77,614 Group D posts.
The DAPR data mentions that there are 70,727 vacancies in the Department of School Education and Literacy alone (DSEL). Out of the total 2,84,086 posts, 70, 727 are vacant; 998 posts in Group A, 6155 posts in Group B, 60,219 in Group C and 3355 posts in Group D.
A total of 37,069 posts are vacant in the Department of Health and Medical Education; 26,168 vacant posts are in Internal Administration; the State Higher Education Department has 13,227 vacant posts; the Revenue Department has a total of 11,145 vacant posts; the Animal Husbandry Department has 10,755 vacant posts; there are 10,898 vacant posts in the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department; 9,980 vacant posts are in the Scheduled Caste Welfare Division; and the Finance Department has 9,536 vacant posts.
Kanthakumar R, president of the All Karnataka State Students Association (AKSSA), told South First that the state PSC conducted only three tests in the last two years.
“There are over 2,50,000 vacancies in various government departments and the government has not been able to fill even 50,000. Even the notifications for the exams that were conducted in the previous years were issued during the tenure of the previous BJP-led government,” Kanthakumar noted.
“Only three exams were conducted in the past two years after the Congress came to power. This included exams for positions such as Commercial Tax Inspector, Panchayat Development Officer, the recently conducted exam for Gazetted Probationers, and a few vacancies for Assistant Engineers and Junior Engineers. There are over 2000 vacancies of FDA (first division assistant) and SDA (second division assistant) posts in various departments,” he added.
“The government has to answer why there is no notification on these job vacancies,” he remarked.
Highlighting the lack of transparency and systematic timeline, Kanthakumar explained, “KPSC lacks proper timeline for releasing notifications for jobs, conducting exams and releasing results. The state commission must function like the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). There should be a proper timeline of events as to when these exams will happen. Every year, the KPSC must make it mandatory to release their timetable for exams.
“A month’s delay is understandable but here, the board delays exams and results for years together. By the time, the candidates get clarity on their results, they would have lost eligibility in age.”
Kanthakumar said that if the Congress government failed to make job appointments and reforms in KPSC as promised, the chances of them returning to power in the next Assembly elections were meagre.
“The only recruitment that happened in the last six months was for the post of Village Administrative Officer. However, this exam for 1,000 vacant posts was conducted by the Karnataka Examination Authority. The state government has to fill at least 50,000 vacancies every year. Only then, they will be able to fill vacancies of 2,50,000 in the next three years,” he noted.
“Besides this, there is no guarantee on the jobs provided by KPSC. The recent irregularities in the appointment of AEE (Assistant Executive Engineer) in the Rural Drinking Water and Cleanliness Department are the best examples. While this case is pending before the high court, the 24 candidates who are appointed as AEEs are not paid salaries. “There is no certainty on when the case will get over. It might take years and the future of these 24 candidates is jeopardised,” pointed out Kanthakumar.
Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council Chalavadi T Narayanswamy expressed concerns about the government’s lack of control over the Karnataka PSC.
He said: “KPSC has a bad reputation and it seems like the government has no control over it. The Karnataka Public Service Commission was earlier known as Mysore Civil Services. Back then, only meritorious candidates were selected for jobs through exams.”
“Whenever KPSC conducts exams they are supposed to filter meritorious candidates and appoint them in the services. However, now the situation is not the same due to rampant corruption. The marks in the final stage of the interview have been reduced from 200 to 25 because the board is making necessary corrections in the candidates’ OMR sheets in the preliminary exams. Candidates are exploited for money and only those who shell out money get selected in these exams,” he alleged.
Throwing more light on the irregularities in the KPSC, Narayanswamy stated that the Karnataka Appellate Tribunal has ordered to review the candidates appointed in the government services in 1990 and 1998.
“Now, this is going to be troublesome for the employees who have been in service for more than two decades. They will be asked to leave the service and will not be paid their salaries. As a result, the work assigned to them would remain pending leading to delays in government work,” he added.
The recently conducted preliminary exams for 384 Gazetted Probationers Group A and B posts set a bad example for the state government. In six months, the KPSC conducted preliminary exams twice. In August 2024, when the exam was conducted, there were huge discrepancies and errors in the translation of questions from English to Kannada.
The KPSC and Siddaramaiah-led government drew flak from aspirants and Kannada authors for depending on artificial intelligence (AI) and Google Translate for the translating questions. Various coaching centres and student organisations highlighted errors in over 59 questions both in papers 1 and 2 in August 2024.
After a lot of protests by the students and Opposition leaders, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah ordered the KPSC to relieve those responsible for lapses in the question paper. He also asked KPSC to conduct exams again, within two months. Again on 29 December 2024, KPSC conducted preliminary exams for gazetted probationers.
This time, aspirants were expecting KPSC not to commit any blunders in terms of translation. Unfortunately, there were translation errors in over 70 questions, from English to Kannada.
This led to huge disappointment among Kannada medium candidates and they approached the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal (KSAT) seeking justice. Currently, the case is pending with KSAT and it is yet to decide if preliminary exams have to be conducted for the posts.
However, KPSC did not heed the responses of candidates this time and they released the answer key on their website in January, without specifying the cut-off marks of preliminary exams. The commission also released the list of selected candidates who cleared the prelims and qualified to write the mains exam.
The commission has scheduled the mains exam for Gazetted Probationers from 28 March.
While South First visited the KPSC office at Udyog Soudha in Bengaluru for clarifications regarding the allegations and concerns regarding the recruitment, the front office staff informed that the chairman, the secretary and members of the commission were out of office.
When asked about the unfulfilled promise, Labour Minister Santhosh Lad told South First, “While I don’t have data about the number of vacancies in government departments, we are going to fill the vacancies in different phases according to the requirement of each department. The chief minister has promised me reforms in KPSC and I am sure, he will work towards it.”
Regarding the BJP allegation that KPSC officials seem to exercise power over the government, Lad said, “KPSC is an autonomous body and the government doesn’t have much control over it. However, I agree that the commission has brought a bad name to the government.”
He further added, “Even as we talk about the total number of vacancies, we must also acknowledge that most government funds go towards paying salaries. But do you think we require so many employees since everything, from documentation to surveys, is getting digitised in government departments?”
“The workforce must be reduced from what it is there now. We require full staff in only a few government departments,” he added.
Meanwhile, on condition of anonymity, a 30-year-old KPSC aspirant from Srirangapatna told South First, “I started preparing for state civil service exams when I was 25 years old. I have written five KPSC exams so far without any formal coaching. Every time, we have to request and beg KPSC officials to release our results. The last exam I wrote was for the Police Sub-Inspector post for which the notification was released in 2021.”
“There were a total of 56,000 candidates who took this exam. KPSC has released the first list of results but they have delayed releasing an additional list. I am sure my name will be on the additional list,” the aspirant said.
She further added, “KPSC does not have any systematic timeline in conducting exams. Even if they release the notification, the exams may get delayed for almost two years and result in another five years. By then candidates would not be eligible in terms of age. Or worse, they would have died due to health issues.”
Echoing similar sentiments, another aspirant who is already serving as a civil police officer in Shasakara Bhavan, said, “It is high time the government revamp KPSC and form a new committee. It must function like UPSC and conduct exams in a set timeline. I am also waiting for KPSC to release the additional list for Police Sub-Inspector. KPSC has yet to release the results of PDO exams and others. They have failed to even release cut-off marks for Gazetted Probationer exams.”
Meanwhile, on 18 March, the Legislative Assembly passed the Karnataka Public Service Commission (Conduct of Business and Additional Functions) Amendment Bill, 2025, for bringing reforms in the KPSC. According to the Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister HK Patil, the Bill provides lot of control to the government in framing rules for the body but did not mention what sort of rules.
Further, the Bill aims to remove the provision relating to making decisions. The 17 members take time to reach a consensus, leading to delays.
The Bill proposed prescribing a 50 percent quorum for serving members, including the chairman, which means at least nine members must be present and agree to the decisions taken in the meeting.
However, on 15 March, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah stated that the Cabinet was in favour of reducing the number of members from 17 to eight, including the KPSC chairman.
The Cabinet also decided that instead of nominating the members directly, a search committee under the chief secretary would be set up to select the commission members.
The 2nd administrative reforms report by T M Vijaybhaskar in 2023 suggested to reduce the number of members in the commission.
The report stated that it is difficult to maintain confidential matters of KPSC when there are more than the required number of members. Since there are no interviews conducted for Group B and C jobs, the burden is reduced on the commission members. Therefore, the state government can consider reducing the number of members.
In 2016, the Karnataka High Court and, in 2018, the Supreme Court had also ordered to form the select committee to appoint eligible Chairman and also members for the commission.
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil).
