Illegal placements rampant in firms under Kerala govt

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the gold smuggling scandal, more skeletons are tumbling out, exposing illegal contract appointments through consultancies that have become a norm in the state. It has emerged that several posts were created under various organisations, flouting selection rules, for candidates preferred by ministers.
TOI has learned that appointments to such posts were either through direct recruitment or deputation and in the form of temporary appointments citing project requirements. Irregularities in recruitment to various boards and companies of late have surfaced.
To start with, the qualifications are either vague or highly-restrictive enabling the candidates of choice to get an easy entry. It has been found that the conditions were altered after the application process and in some cases, even after the selection process.
For instance, TOI has accessed documents related to recruitment of chief project examiner of KIIFB wherein it was initially stipulated that a serving officer above the rank of a superintending engineer in a central PSU or central government could apply, and the appointment would be on deputation basis.
However, a government order declaring the appointment indicates that the conditions were altered after the selection process.
S J Vijayadas was the sole applicant and he was offered the job on a contract basis with a salary of Rs 2.3 lakhs monthly with a 10% annual increment.
“It could be rightly suspected that it was done for systematically eliminating other applications,” said a senior government official under the condition of anonymity. “Had it been known that such a high salary would be given and that the appointment would be on a contractual basis, this cherry-picking of the candidate would not have been possible.”
Another method is to outsource the supply to outside agencies. “This is less risky for officials. We must satisfy political interests and also save ourselves from any future vigilance cases. This way things look tidy on our files,” said a CEO of a public sector company on condition of anonymity.
A case in point is KSITL outsourcing manpower supply to Pricewaterhouse Cooper (PwC), which in turn claims to have depended on a company called Vision Technologies. Swapna Suresh, accused in the gold smuggling case, was allegedly recruited through this recruitment firm. Often many such companies exist on paper only and have dubious credentials.
Even the creation of new organizations is questionable. After constituting RKI, the government created an RKI cell within the agriculture department for “monitoring and timely implementation of the projects specifically taken up under RKI”. Five posts were created under this cell and the order specifically says that two of the appointees will be retired officers from the agriculture department in the rank of joint secretary and deputy secretary, while the other three would be a BTech graduate, BSc agriculture graduate, and a higher secondary graduate. The expenses for maintaining these five employees would be Rs 65.76 lakh for the next two years as their salary and other allowances. “Giving specifics like a retired officer of a particular rank is tailor-made for a person of choice,” sources said.
Several departments and within KIIFB have highly-paid positions on a contractual basis to monitor KIIFB projects. Most recruitments are done through the Centre for Management Development (CMD), which is registered as an independent society.
“The fairness and transparency in the recruitment process cannot be verified when a complaint is raised as none of the related files come to the government and such recruitment agencies are never audited,” said an official in the finance department on condition of anonymity. Interestingly, the government has consistently opposed side-lining the Public Service Commission (PSC) and had even promised strict adherence to recruitment through PSC in their election manifesto released in 2016.