Know About Contract Jobs in Government Sector: Meaning, Selection Process, Salary & Other Details

Contract Jobs in Government Sector is quite a common term in recent time. Many government and semi government companies are hiring candidates on contractual basis.  Contractual jobs are not limited to any designation or post. Now a days, government organisations are hiring higher to lower designation profiles on contractual basis.

Now, read below to know about the definition, selection process, salary and some other details about the contract jobs in Government sector.  

What is Contract?

In legal terms - A contract is a voluntary arrangement between two or more parties that is enforceable by law as a binding legal agreement. The basic elements required for the agreement to be legally enforceable contract are mutual assent, expressed by a valid offer and acceptance; adequate consideration; capacity; and legality.According to Section 2 (h) of the Indian Contract Act, a contract is an agreement enforceable by the laws made by the state.

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What are Contract jobs?

And now let's know what are contract jobs? Contractual jobs are the type of employment in which one has to sign a contract at the beginning of the job, according to which one has to agree to do this work while agreeing to all the terms and conditions mentioned in that contract. In contract work, usually, a job is done for a certain period of time at a certain salary, which is provided to the person doing the works at the end of the project or assignment. Employees are hired for contract jobs in almost all government departments, including education department, health department, railway, judiciary, bank, roadways etc. These government departments keep issuing notifications from time to time for hiring people for contractual jobs.

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The selection process for contract jobs:

Just like permanent Government jobs, government organizations keep issuing notifications from time to time for contractual jobs too. There are different eligibility criteria, age limit, salary structure etc for different contractual jobs in different departments. The exemption limit given in these eligibility criteria for the reserved category candidates is similar to those given in other jobs. In general, candidates applying for these jobs have to pass an objective type written examination. These examinations are conducted online as well as offline too. Different selection processes are carried out according to the type of organization and post. The selection processes include objective type examination, written examination, and interview. There are some Government organizations which hire candidates on the basis of their educational qualifications and academic record.

How is the salary determined?

Now let’s know about the salary of contractual jobs - Earlier the employees who worked on contractual jobs got very low salary but later, when this matter reached the court, a lot of discussions was done on it, the decision on the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’ was taken and was applicable to all the concerned temporary employees, so as to vest in them the right to claim wages, at par with the minimum of the pay scale of regularly engaged Government employees, holding the same post.

Thus, according to the "Equal Pay for Equal Work", the Supreme Court has provided relief to the employees working on contractual jobs. But still, in many fields, contractual job employees have to work on very low salary. Employees working on contract basis are now given bonuses too.