NEW DELHI: The government stated on Tuesday that it will hire 10 lakh individuals in various Central government agencies and ministries over the next 18 months on a “mission mode,” a timeframe that ends only 4-5 months before the Narendra Modi government seeks re-election.

“PM Narendra Modi evaluated the state of Human Resources in all departments and ministries and directed that the Government recruit 10 lakh employees in mission mode over the next 1.5 years,” the Prime Minister’s Office tweeted.

This is first reported on April 3 about the PM’s emphasis on filling vacancies promptly and starting the process within months. Following this, each department and ministry prepared a list of open positions in comparison to the sanctioned number of posts.

The PM discussed the recruitment drive during a marathon 4-hour meeting with all Central Government secretaries in April. The urgency of Modi’s directive to hasten the filling of vacancies grows in light of the opposition’s efforts to turn “vacancies” and unemployment in general in the recently held assembly elections, notably in Uttar Pradesh.

Though the BJP defied the effort to win a comfortable victory, the PM’s directive, along with a similar directive made by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, to address what could be a vulnerability in its plan for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

According to sources, railways account for a sizable portion of the available positions.

In response to a query in Rajya Sabha in July last year, Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh stated that as of March 1, 2020, there were around 8.72 lakh empty positions in various central government ministries. The total sanctioned strength of all central government departments was 40.05 lakh, with 31.32 personnel in place at the time.