“The Pessimist Sees Difficulty In Every Opportunity. The Optimist Sees Opportunity In Every Difficulty.”

It is necessary to know the meaning of a contract in legal parlance.  “A contract is a voluntary arrangement between two or more parties that is enforceable by law as a binding legal agreement.” The basic elements of a legal contract are assent by the parties concerned. According to Section 2 (h) of the Indian Contract Act, a contract is an agreement enforceable by the laws made by the state.

Therefore, it follows that contract jobs are the employment in which the candidate desirous of accepting it has to sign a contract under which she or he has to agree to do the assigned work, while accepting the terms and conditions incorporated into that contract. The format of a  contract work means that a job is performed for a specified period of time at the emoluments mentioned therein. The salary, thus, is paid to the employee doing the work pre-determined. Contract jobs are available in almost all government departments. Some of the departments where the need for contract employees is greater include education, health, the railways, the judiciary, banks and infrastructure. These departments periodically issue notifications for recruiting personnel on contractual basis.

For contract jobs, too, there are criteria regarding the eligibility of a candidate, the age limit and the salary to be paid. These structures vary for different contractual jobs in various  departments and undertakings. The age exemption limit for the reserved category candidates is like the one applicable in other jobs. The candidates who apply for these jobs have to undergo and clear a written examination, conducted online or offline. Depending upon the type of job, the department and the position, selection processes are structured according to the particular requirement. In some cases, the selection processes involves an interview after the written examination.

For some years, the contract basis employees were paid much lower salaries as compared with equivalent employees who were in regular service. However, this discrepancy generated a lot of heat and the policy was challenged in court. This led to a spirited debate and finally, the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’ was adopted and made applicable to all the contract employees. This established their right to obtain the emoluments at par with the regular government employees through a supreme court ruling.

Till recent times, Mumbai police had been taking the help of the Home Guards for routine traffic management and bandobast duties. However, the services would be used only on select occasions, for a few days or weeks at a time like festivals. This time, though, it has been allowed to enhance its force for eleven months, making it a landmark decision.

Over the past three years, several government departments and undertakings have been facing employee shortage. As the establishment costs of the government have been swelling constantly, due to the successive pay commission recommendations and owing to the increasing number of pensioners, some drastic steps have been adopted.

For instance, the reason for a sudden shortage of personnel for Mumbai police is the Covid pfor iandemic and inaction by the authorities regarding regular recruitment. Till then, nearly 1500 new police recruits were employed annually. However, the Covid Pandemic stalled all government recruiting, including the police force. Hence, there was no new recruitment in 2019, 2020 and 2021.  Moreover, over 500 police personnel succumbed to the pandemic while a large number were affected by health problems and opted for voluntary retirement during this period. On the other hand, over 5000 retired in three years. The vacancies so caused have remained unfilled.

Against this backdrop, the Maharashtra government’s decision to go in for contract employees is not unprecedented. The process for the bids to select the agencies began in September 2021. It was completed by April 2022. There were 26 applicant agencies. After due examination, ten agencies were awarded the contract. One firm was later removed from the list after the Enforcement Directorate swooped on it laer.

The genesis of the present turmoil is the government resolution (GR) issued on 14 March this year, awarding a five-year tender to nine recruiting agencies, for supplying skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled contract workers for the government. As if by a coincidence, it came out during an indefinite strike by state government employees demanding restoration of the Old Pension Scheme, which was scrapped by the Union government in 2003. The agencies have been authorised to supply a wide range of personnel like project coordinators, engineers, teachers, content writers, clerks, librarians, telephone operators, drivers, carpenters, gardeners, lift operators, sweepers and peons.

The government has stated in the GR that it plans to lessen its expenditure on governance by outsourcing as much staff as possible so that more funding can be available and diverted towards welfare and developmental projects.

The standard refrain is that the government is creating two categories of its employees. While those in regular service enjoy job security,  specified pay scales entitlements like provident fund and pension, those on contract have to work at a minimum wage, without any job security and deprived of all benefits.

Although there are angry announcements against the decision to employ personnel on a contract basis, there is no dearth of applicants because of the unemployment situation. Sooner or later, the principle of privatization seems to become inevitable.