New Delhi: The government has decided to speed up process of filling up all the vacancies reserved for SCs, STs, OBCs and people with disabilities. Officials said the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has asked all departments to give details of existing vacancies in the reserved categories and efforts taken to fill them. "We have directed all departments including public sector undertakings to give details of backlog vacancies and efforts taken by them to fill it. They have been told to give the desired information by this month end," a DoPT official said. He said the government has already issued instruction to fill up vacancies in the reserved classed on priority basis. "We will be speeding up the process of filing up the vacancies in reserved categories," the official added. The government had last year asked all its ministries to re-launch a special drive to clear backlog of vacancies of the people belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Castes and those with disabilities by March this year. In 2008, the government has asked all the Central government departments and undertakings to start a special drive to fill up all such vacancies. According to an official data updated till December 2010, there were a total of 59,809 backlog reserved vacancies as on November 1, 2008. "In order to protect interests of SC, ST, OBC communities and to ensure that the posts reserved for them are filled up only by candidates belonging to these categories, it has been decided that where sufficient number of candidates belonging to these categories are not available, the vacancies would not be filled. These unfilled vacancies become backlog reserved vacancies for the subsequent recruitment year," the official said. The Central government has also carried out special recruitment drive in 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996 and 2004.