Public sector vacancies affect service delivery – from education to civil aviation, railways and healthcare. They also hurt national security.

I have been writing for this newspaper for the last six years. When was the last time I did back-to-back columns on the same subject? Never. This is a first. A fortnight ago, the topic of this column, Zero Hour, was unemployment in the private sector (‘Lost in the election chatter’, IE, October 24). This week, we zero in on unemployment in the public sector.

The youth unemployment rate is almost thrice the national average unemployment rate. The government, the single largest employer in the country, has not filled lakhs of vacancies.

While the government talks much about Viksit Bharat by 2047, a closer look at the number of vacancies in the public sector (once considered the bedrock of class mobility) tells a very different story. From teachers and doctors to scientists and security personnel, staffing shortages have spared no sector. This has precipitated not just a jobs crisis but also a gaping governance deficit. Here is just one example: Almost 2 crore people applied for 64,000 railway vacancies.

There are crippling vacancies in the education sector. Look at these numbers. Over 12,000 posts remain vacant across the Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalaya schools. There are over 1 lakh schools operating with just a single teacher as per the UDISE+ Report 2024-25. Further, one out of every four posts in central universities is vacant. As highlighted by a parliamentary committee, this shortfall has impacted both the faculty-student ratio and the quality of teaching.

The vacancy endemic extends to the field of research and development. In the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, more than a quarter of posts, across scientists, engineers and administrative staff, are vacant, while nearly two out of five posts for scientists are vacant at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). This is directly reflected in India lagging behind countries like the USA and China in innovation, scientific publications and patents.

Let us examine rural healthcare. Seven out of ten of the specialist positions in Community Health Centres lie vacant, whereas a fifth of positions for doctors remain unfilled. Even elite institutions like AIIMS suffer from faculty shortages, with two out of five posts vacant among the 20 operational AIIMS in the country. Shortfalls in this critical sector compromise patient welfare and overburden healthcare personnel.

The clouds overhead are dark. Much also needs to be done to put things on track. In the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), one out of two posts is vacant. A parliamentary committee has called this out: “critical vulnerability at the heart of India’s safety oversight system”. Additionally, the Air Traffic Controllers’ Guild had raised concerns over the persistent shortage of controllers, leading to closure of critical operational units and hampering emergency responses.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, published recently, reveals a 6.7 per cent increase in railway accidents in 2023 over the previous year. This comes at a time when more than 1.5 lakh vacancies exist in the safety category alone in the railways, as per an RTI reply.

The government thumps its chest on its uncompromising attitude on national security. What’s the ground reality? The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has three out of ten positions vacant across sanctioned posts, hindering effective investigations. The paramilitary forces, whose remit includes border protection, currently have over 1 lakh vacancies. This translates into gaps in national security and pressure on the existing forces, leading to increasing suicides and fratricides among personnel.

Even the institutions charged with protecting the most vulnerable are not immune to the vacancy plague. In a reply to a question asked recently in Parliament by your columnist, the Union government admitted that the positions of chairperson, vice-chairperson and members of the National Commission for Minorities are lying vacant. Similarly, the posts of vice-chairperson and one member (out of a total of two) in the National Commission for Scheduled Castes have been vacant since March 2024.

The Department of Health and Family Welfare has a shortfall of one-fourth of its manpower while bodies like the Central Board of Direct Taxes and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs are staring at vacancy rates of 34 per cent and 26 per cent respectively.

During the Monsoon Session of Parliament a few months ago, answers tabled by the Union government put the figure of vacancies in the public sector at around 15 lakh. Fill the vacancies. Turn jobs into a reality. It is time to turn Viksit Bharat into FixIt Bharat.

PS: Someone promised 2 crore jobs annually. It was the Roman poet Ovid who said, “Everyone’s a millionaire where promises are concerned.”

[This article was also published in The Indian Express | Wednesday, October 24, 2025]