The Public  Service Commission has initiated the process to recruit around 9,000 employees for local units in what will be the largest recruitment drive ever launched by the commission at a single time.

The Staff Adjustment Act has allowed the central level Public Service Commission (PSC) to conduct exams for staff recruitment as the Provincial Public Service Commission is yet to be formed.

The local governments have long been complaining about the dearth of employees at local governments due to which service delivery has been affected.

Although the government had promised to prioritise staff adjustment at the local level, the highest number of civil servants were adjusted at the offices under the federal government against the total posts in each layer of the governments, prolonging the problem of staff shortage.

Following the complaints from the local governments, the Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration had asked the local units to submit lists specifying the number of staff required to fill the vacancies.

The ministry had received staff demand from 555 local governments to fill 14,662 seats. The lists were compiled and forwarded to the PSC to start the recruitment process.

Despite the demand for 14,662 seats, the commission is starting the recruitment drive for around 9,000 posts through open competition, PSC Chairman Umesh Mainali told the Post.

“Rest of the demand will be fulfilled through the process of promotion.”

Mainali noted that this was the largest recruitment ever undertaken by the commission.

“The maximum number of staff recruited by the commission in a year was 6,000,” he said. The PSC on Friday published a working table for the recruitment process.

It plans to issue vacancy notice on May 29 for all 9,000 posts. “We have planned to recommend names for recruitment from mid-October to Mid-December,” Mainali said, adding that the plan is to ensure that local governments do not suffer due to lack of staff in the next fiscal year.

“The staff shortage is everywhere. There is a lack of secretaries in around 1,800 wards of rural municipalities,” said Hom Narayan Shrestha, president of National Association of Rural Municipality.

Due to lack of ward secretaries, Shrestha said ward chairmen themselves were performing the responsibilities of ward secretaries.

There are more than 400 rural municipalities with around 3,200 wards. Earlier, it had been expected that the staff shortage issue at the local level would largely be addressed after the completion of employee adjustment process. But this didn’t happen as most government staff were adjusted in federal agencies compared to the total seats allocated under the central government.

The Federal Affairs Ministry stated in March that it completed the adjustment process by mobilising 97,588 civil servants in three layers of the government out of approved deputation of 137,614.

As many as 39,960 civil servants were integrated in federal offices out of 48,409 allocated seats.

Of the 22,297 deputations approved in all seven provinces, 13,821 civil servants were integrated, and out of 66,908 deputations approved in 753 local units, 43,807 civil servants were integrated at the local level.