Mamata Banerjee announced a plan to hire 1.2 lakh peons and clerks, ending a decade-old informal freeze on such mass recruitment that had bled the state coffers and suggesting that she is more Left than the Left when it comes to replicating profligate policies.


"We have decided in the cabinet today that we will recruit 2 lakh people to the vacant posts of teachers and Group C and Group D government employees. There will be 70,000 teachers, 60,000 Group C employees and 60,000 Group D employees," the chief minister said at Nabanna.


The recruitment of teachers is unlikely to be questioned per se - although quality has been a source of concern - but the trend elsewhere has been to outsource low-skilled jobs that peons and lower-division clerks do. 
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