“Once a government employee, always a government employee.”
In general, this statement holds true the world over. The hire-and-fire culture, a much-dreaded reality of a private-sector career, is alien in the dictionary of most governments. Usually, career progression and promotion is based on criteria other than merit. Barring a handful, few who enter the safety net offered by a government job where performance is never much of a consideration will ever dream of rocking this safe boat.
That’s why when one hears of a state government initiative where the regularisation of 9,500 contractual junior gram panchayat secretaries (JPS) is proposed to happen based entirely on their performance, one sits up and takes notice. This is certainly a first for me in my 25 years of watching the bureaucracy and government functioning closely. Regularisations of jobs based on performance sounds like an oxymoron to me.