Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday said ensuring clean and transparent recruitment comes with a political cost.
He said he has distributed about 2 lakh appointment letters since starting the “tradition” of clean recruitment in 2011.
“But a transparent recruitment process has a political cost. People around me feel bad if the process is fair. My party and I had to make a lot of sacrifices for clean recruitments although there was no pressure on me for it,” Mr. Sarma said during a function organised to distribute appointment letters to 22,958 youths in 11 departments.
He insisted he “cannot give anything” to people in the Bharatiya Janata Party who “expect something from me” for working for him day and night and helping him win elections.
“The political losses notwithstanding, we are focussed on clean recruitment for Assam’s future. This is because we feel the nation is above the party,” Mr. Sarma said.
He lamented that some of you got jobs as teachers without having to pay any bribes were wasting their time pestering the government for transfer, travel allowance and such.
“The government hopes these youths will bring changes to the lives of the poor and inspire them to scale greater heights. I appeal to the newly-recruited teachers to not let the poor down and give beyond their salary to society,” the Chief Minister said.
“How long will Assam lag behind Gujarat and Karnataka? The CM cannot change the fate of Assam, the government employees can,” he added.
He asked those recruited in the police to be sympathetic with the poor but deal with criminals sternly. “If a man driving a car violates traffic rules, the policeman warns him by blowing the whistle but uses his cane on rickshaw-puller for the same offence. This has to change,” he said.
Mr. Sarma, who became the Chief Minister on May 10, 2021, reminded the people of his promise to provide 1 lakh government jobs to the State’s youths in five years. He had also promised employment avenues for 2 lakh more in the non-government sector.
