Polytechnics: The directorate of technical education was established in Rajasthan in 1957 followed by the establishment of three state government polytechnics at Jodhpur, Udaipur and Ajmer in 1958. Kota Polytechnic had started functioning in 1960 followed by polytechnics at Bikaner and Alwar in 1961. There was an acute shortage of technical manpower at that time and persons with experience of teaching in polytechnics and establishment of technical institutions were extremely difficult to find. Initially, all appointments to the posts of principals, heads of departments and lecturers in the polytechnics were made on the basis of direct recruitment by Rajasthan Public Service Commission. Efforts of the public service commission were supplemented by substantial contacts with established technical institutions and eligible persons available for appointment. In the mean time, adhoc appointments and promotions were being made for a period of six months, for filling up available vacancies of teaching staff in the institutions. Extensions in appointments for subsequent periods of six months, at a time, were made by the state government with the concurrence of the public service commission. Rajasthan Technical Education Service Rules were framed in 1973, almost fifteen years after initial recruitments of staff for Jodhpur, Udaipur and Ajmer Polytechnics. When I took over as director of technical education in July 1975, most of the teaching staff in the polytechnics was working on adhoc basis on the posts held by them and Rajasthan Public Service Commission was reluctant to convey its concurrence for further extensions of appointments on adhoc basis. The commission insisted that, the appointments should either be made by direct recruitment through the public service commission or through promotions on the recommendations of departmental promotion committees in accordance with the service rules. Naturally, regularization of all appointments in accordance with the provisions of Rajasthan Technical Education Service Rules, 1973 was an issue, which faced us as an overriding priority.
Posts of lecturers in Polytechnics: Under the Rajasthan Technical Education Service Rules 1973, all posts of lecturers were to be filled by direct recruitment through Rajasthan Public Service Commission. The task of regularization of the appointments to the vacant posts of lecturers was comparatively, simple and straight forward. The service record of all lecturers was collected and an integrated seniority list of all lecturers, who were holding their posts on a substantive basis was prepared, considerinag their seniority from the date of substanative appointment. To avoid leagal complications, the integrated seniority list of lecturers working on a substantive basis, as also their department wise seniority lists were prepared and notified. Sufficient time was provided for submission of objections, if any. Thereafter, all objections were considered individually, one by one and the finalized integrated lists, as also departmental wise lists were prepared and notified.
Subsequently, department wise lists of lecturers, including vacant posts and the posts which had been filled on an adhoc basis, were prepared and submitted to the Public Service Commission for direct recruitment in accordance with the provisions of the service rules.
Heads of Departments of polytechnics: All posts of heads of departments of polytechnics were to be filled on the recommendations of the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) on the basis of merit and merit-cum-seniority in accordance with the provisions of the service rules. If there was one vacancy, five senior most lecturers of the department were to be considered for promotion, for two vacancies, ten senior most lecturers were to be considered and so on. The criteria for merit involved consideration of annual confidential reports of the eligible candidates for the previous five to ten years. The reporting officer’s impressions about the officer’s performance and personality during the year were recorded in annual confidential reports under a number of heads and sub-heads, such as, patience, tact, courtesy, impartiality, character, constitution, physical energy, mental alertness, initiative and drive, powers of control, powers of application and any other striking characteristics. Grading against each head and subhead was on a five point scale by recording: outstanding, very good, good, satisfactory and poor. All this was followed by general remarks, which included special commendations and adverse remarks. Naturally, the whole affair of preparing a merit list from the files was time consuming and mind boggling. From considerations of justice and simplicity we digitized the remarks by assigning numerical values to: Outstanding-5, very good-4, good-3, satisfactory-2 and poor-1. Criteria for seniority was the department wise seniority list of lecturers.
Departmental Promotion Committee met in the office of the Public Service Commission. NL Jain a member of the commission represented the commission, BS Nepalia, deputy secretary education department represented the education commissioner and deputy secretary appointments represented the secretary of the appointments department. Relevent records, including the department wise vacancies of heads of departments, department wise seniority lists of lecturers eligible for promotion and the annual confidential reports of the eligible candidates for the previous five to ten years were made available to the departmental promotion committees. After a few sittings, the departmental promotion committee completed the onerous task of making recommendations for promotions to the posts of heads of departments of polytechnics. This was followed by the issue of orders for promotion by the state government.
Principals of Polytechnics: Next in line were the posts of principals of polytechnics. Integrated seniority list of eligible lecturers formed the basis for the consideration of the seniority of eligible candidates for purposes of promotion to the posts of principals. For every vacant post of principal, five eligible heads of departments and lecrurers were considered. Departmental Promotion Committee met in the office of the Public Service Commission. NL Jain a member of the commission represented the commission, BS Nepalia, deputy secretary education department represented the education commissioner and deputy secretary appointments represented the secretary of the appointments department. The DPC made its recommendations after a review of the relevent records, which were followed by the issue of formal orders by the state government.
Demonstrators and instructors of Polytechnics: There was a long list of demonstrators and instructors of polytechnics working on an adhoc basis. Public Service Commission had authorized the Director of Technical Education to constitute a committee for the scrutiny of the service records and for interview of all eligible departmental candidates and to send the recommendations to the public service commission for its concurrence for their substantive appointment. After the interviews of candidates and preparation of department wise merit lists and receipt of concurrence from the public service commission, formal orders for substantive appointments of demonstrators and instructors were issued by the Director of Technical Education.
Director of Technical Education: The DPC for the post of Director of Technical Education was held sometime in the summer of 1976 at Mt Abu. The members of the departmental promotion committee were NL Jain member of the public service commission, JS Mehta education commissioner and KK Bhatnagar special secretary appointments department. A seniority list of five eligible candidates and annual confidential reports of the eligible candidates for the last ten to fifteen years were made available to the DPC. Relevent service record of the eligible candidates was also made available for scrutiny. After necessary deliberations, the DPC stamped my name for promotion to the post of Director of Technical Education on grounds of merit-cum-seniority. Subsequently, formal orders for promotion to the post of Director of Technical Education and confirmation on the post with immediate effect, were issued by the state government.
Industrial Training Institutes: The first industrial training institute was established in Rajasthan in 1942 at Ajmer, which was a centrally administered area of the British Government at that time. Next industrial training institute came up at Jaipur in 1946. Fourteen Industrial Training Institutes were functioning in Rajasthan in 1975 at Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, Ajmer, Sri Ganganagar, Ratangarh, Pali, Khetri, Alwar, Bhilwara, Bharatpur, Bikaner, Sikar and Nagaur. The staff of industrial training institutes included junior instructors, senior instructors, supervisors, foreman, superintendents and principals. Most of the ITIs had ten to twelve trades, with one or more sections for each trade. Junior instructors handled one section of 16 trainees of his trade. Senior instructors handled the second year of the trainees or the senior section of the trade. Supervisor looked after three to four sections of his trade, placed under his supervision. Foreman or group instructor looked after the work of three to four supervisors. Foremen were drawn from supervisors and could be from any trade. Superintendents were heads of institutions in smaller ITIs and principals were heads of institutions of bigger institutions.
Service rules for Industrial Training Institutes of Rajasthan were notified sometimes in 1975. Before the service rules all substantive appointments were made by direct recruitment on the recommendations of the public service commission. However, due to expansion of industrial training institutes during the previous fifteen years, most of the instructors, senior instructors, supervisors, foremen, superintendents and principals of industrial training institutes were working on adhoc basis on the posts held by them in 1975. Rajasthan technical training service rules were notified in 1975 and all junior instructors became eligible for promotion as senior instructors in their trade and senior instructors became eligible for promotion to the posts of supervisors and then to the posts of foreman or group instructors and finally to the posts of superintendents and principals.
Our first task was to finalize the integrated seniority list of all junior instructors on the basis of the date of their substantive appointment on the post of junior instructors, including all those persons, who were appointed substantively as junior instructors, but were working on higher posts on adhoc basis. Thereafter, the list was notified to all the instructors and objections, were invited from them. Subsequently, the objections were considered one by one and the final integrated seniority list of junior instructors, as also the trade wise seniority lists of junior instructors were preapared and notified. Thereafter, the departmental promotion committee scrutinized the annual confidential reports of junior instructors and made recommendations for the promotion of junior instructors to the posts of senior instructors on the basis of merit and merit-cum seniority in accordance with the provisions of the service rules. Merit was based on their annual confidential reports and seniority was based on their trade wise seniority. Similarly, promotions to the posts of supervisors were made on the basis of merit and merit cum seniority on the recommendations of the departmental promotion committee. Merit was based on annual confidential reports and seniority was based on trade wise seniority. Promotions for the posts of foreman or group instructor were made on the recommendations of the departmental promotion committees on the basis of merit and merit-cum seniority in accordance with the provisions in the service rules. The merit was based on annual confidential reports and seniority for the posts of group instructors or foremen, followed the integrated seniority list of junior instructors. Similarly, recommendations were made by the departmental promotion committee for the posts of superintendents and principals on the basis of merit and merit cum seniority, in accordance with the provisions of service rules. Merit was based on annual confidential reports and seniority was based on the integrated seniority list of group instructors and foremen. Formal orders for substantive appointments were issued from time to time on the receipt of recommendations of the departmental promotion committees.
The whole exercise took about six to nine months and by the middle of the year 1976, the staff of polytechnics and industrial training institutes presented a fresh look and buoyancy and looked forward to their upcoming challenges.