Nearly 6,000 vacant posts are being filled up by govt: Sangma

There are nearly 6,000 posts lying vacant in various departments of the Meghalaya government and efforts are being made to fill them up at the earliest, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said Thursday.

"There are 5,984 vacancies to be filled up in 48 departments of the state government," Sangma told the Assembly during question hour here.

He was replying to a question raised by Congress MLA George B Lyngdoh who sought to know the breakup of total vacancies till February 2019 in various state government departments, state sponsored societies and state owned agencies.

Earlier, Lyngdoh had told the House that the Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC) was yet to fill up 1,873 vacancies and requested the state to speed up the recruitment process.

In his reply, Sangma said that besides MPSC, there are vacancies that are to be filled up by the District Selection Committee as well.

Sangma said government recruitments take time due to procedural delays.

"The MPSC has been continuously working on this. From time to time, the government has sent letters to the MPSC asking them to take necessary action. The MPSC has been conducting exams for filling up of various posts," the chief minister said.

Meanwhile, Health Minister A L Hek also admitted that there was shortage of manpower, including doctors, in the hospital and health centres.

He said the vacancies would be filled up through Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) and direct recruitment through recruitment agencies such as the Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC), District Selection Committee (DSC) or Departmental Selection Committee.

To meet exigencies, he said appointments with breaks in between are being made by the directorate untill the recommendation of regular candidates comes through.

Bek expressed confidence that fhe posts of 11 dentists would be filled up soon.