Activists urge immediate action to fill over 27,000 backlog vacancies across Tamil Nadu

Activists have appealed to the State government, urging immediate administrative intervention to fill more than 27,641 long-pending backlog vacancies across Tamil Nadu.Highlighting systemic disparities over the past two decades, they pointed out that employment quotas meant for the Backward Classes (BC), Most Backward Classes (MBC), Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) had remained unfilled across various government departments and local bodies.S. Karuppaiah of Dalit Liberation Movement argued that despite existing legal frameworks, adequate representation for women and marginalised communities continued to face administrative hurdles across four key sectors — local governance, religious endowments, the judiciary and the cooperative sector.In the local administration sector, he emphasised that while recent amendments to the Panchayat Raj Act mandated reservation, leadership roles and administrative positions in newly structured bodies still lacked equitable representation for women and backward communities.He noted that across the State’s 12,525 village panchayats, key administrative decisions had historically lacked proportional representation.“Similar concerns are raised within the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department, where, despite governing tens of thousands of temples across the State, advisory and trustee positions predominantly favour upper-caste groups, bypassing true social justice representation for marginalised devotees,” he stated.The State’s judicial machinery and cooperative sectors also face similar concerns.In his letter to the State Women’s Commission, Mr. Karuppaiah highlighted that among nearly 2,800 State law officers operating across the Supreme Court, High Court benches and subordinate courts, appointments from backward and marginalised categories remained severely deficient.He added that the Madras High Court and the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court were functioning in the State.Specifically, in the Madurai District Court alone, 37 State law officers were functioning, while sub-courts were operating in Usilampatti, Melur, Periyakulam, Thirumangalam and Palani.Likewise, Dindigul district currently had 39 active State law officers, while Ramanathapuram district had 12 sub-courts. Across these districts and judicial forums, the appointment of State law officers from among women, Most Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes had consistently been neglected under earlier preference guidelines, he added.Further, within the extensive network of more than 4,500 cooperative societies, including primary agricultural credit, housing and milk producers’ societies, leadership roles and staff recruitment had allegedly circumvented government reservation norms for decades.Citing data from regional cooperative units where specific quotas remained unfilled, the forum called upon the State authorities to conduct transparent, priority-based recruitment drives to clear the decades-old backlog and restore equitable representation across all public sectors. Published - September 23, 2026 07:00 pm IST