Ten months after the government cancelled the recruitment process for lateral entry to posts in various ministries saying that it would review the policy to include reservations, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Dr Jitendra Singh said Wednesday that the government has not suspended its lateral entry policy and is still “open to it”.
On August 17, 2024, the had advertised 45 posts for lateral entry into various ministries. However, the government decided to stop the process after facing backlash, including from ally, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), over the lack of reservations. On August 20, Singh wrote to the UPSC chairperson to cancel the advertisement, which was done the same day. Till then, the government had maintained that reservation in lateral entry posts could not be implemented as they were single-cadre posts.
“It is important that the constitutional mandate towards social justice is upheld so that deserving candidates from marginalised communities get their rightful representation in government services…The Prime Minister is of the firm belief that the process of lateral entry must be aligned with the principles of equity and social justice enshrined in our Constitution, particularly concerning the provisions of reservation,” Singh had written.
Asked about the status of the policy while he addressed a press conference on 11 years of the government, Singh said the policy was not suspended. “We have not suspended it. I think it was started with a very noble intention and it was possible only because we had someone like Prime Minister Modi there, otherwise, such kind of lateral entry, was unknown, the procedures,” he said, adding that the previous governments did not have an objective mechanism for such recruitments.
“We tried to institutionalise it, we tried to make it more objective by routing it through the UPSC,” he said.
Asked about the implementation of reservation, he said in appointments of single posts anywhere in the world, “reservation rule doesn’t work. I hope I’m making my point clear.”
“If you say this year I will have reserved category, next year I will have general category, then if you don’t find what you need for the particular profession, you will have to wait for years. So that was the principle which was tried to be put across. But some people still needed to have a discussion, so we said we are open to it,” he said.
Rachna Shah, secretary, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), said the matter was “under discussion and active consideration” but added that typically no reservation guidelines can be applied for a single job.
“But nevertheless when this issue came up, we said okay, we’ll give it a thought, let us also understand what the options are. We are still open to it. It has not been abandoned,” the minister added.
