Patna: More than half a million candidates have applied against just 136 vacancies for the lowest level posts in Bihar government.
Officials engaged in scrutinising the applications were surprised after they stumbled upon a good number of highly qualified candidates holding MBA, B Tech and post graduate degrees applying for the low level posts which required candidates having qualified only Class 10 examination and who know cycling.
The 136 posts advertised by the Bihar Legislative Council are for night guards, gatekeepers, cleaners, gardeners, letter distributors and office assistants.
The selected candidates will be paid from Rs18,000 to Rs56,900 per month, which has further resulted in huge rush of candidates.
“We are shocked and surprised to find candidates with much higher qualifications applying for the posts which seek applicants having passed Class 10 examinations,” said a senior official of the secretariat administration wishing not to be named. The official said the interview was going on and would continue till February 2020.
In April last year too, more than 25 million people had applied for 90,000 vacancies advertised by the Indian railways. Here too the vacancies advertised were for hiring low grade employees, such as engine drivers, signalling staffs, welders, porters, track maintenance workers, electricians and mechanics yet quite many highly qualified youths applied for them.
The shocking development comes amid top companies like Cognizant and Infosys announcing to lay off around 20,000 staffs. Local media has reported Infosys, India’s second largest IT major, is laying off around 12,000 of its mid, senior-level executives.
Data released by the labour ministry in May has confirmed that unemployment in the country was 6.1 per cent of the total labour force during 2017-18 which is the highest in 45 years. The data was released on the day when Narendra Modi 2.0 cabinet took charge on May 30.
