Call it the impact of unemployment concerns among today’s youth or the craze for government jobs, the number of applicants for jobs in the Bihar Legislative assembly has been huge, especially for the class three and four- grade posts.
“The applications have already touched around five lakh for around 136 posts, including watchman, sweeper, gardener, driver and office attendant. The class 4 recruitments will be done directly through interview after scrutiny of applications,” said a senior government official.
However, even for class 4 posts, which need eligibility of class 10, candidates with much higher academic qualifications, including BTech, MBA, postgraduates and graduates, have also applied.
The state assembly has come up with large-scale recruitment prospects at various levels for the first time after a long time. Bulk of the appointments will now be made directly through the newly formed Bihar Vidhan Sabha (recruitment and service conditions) rules, 2018.
According to the official, though the recruitment process has been outsourced to an outside agency, the number of applications for class 4 posts has been the highest in the age group of 18-37 years.
“We don’t exactly know the qualification of candidates, but considering the response it is quite possible,” he added.
For class 3 also, the response is big, with around 2.75 lakh applications for around 125 posts spread across seven categories. For class 3, the candidates will have to go through a two-tier process involving preliminary examination and mains exam.
A senior official of the secretariat administration informed that some of the job aspirants face BPSC and sub-inspector competitive examinations. Besides job surety, “high starting salary” is one of the reasons why the post has attracted so much attention. The starting salary for the post is ₹18,000 to ₹56,900 per month. He told that the interview is going on and it will continue till February 2020.
Opposition parties have attacked the Nitish Kumar government over its promise to provide employment to youngsters. They have raised questions about the BJP-JD(U) claims of creating jobs in the state.
“It puts a question mark on the development claims of the Nitish government. What happened to NDA’s promise of providing jobs when highly qualified people are applying for the post of peon and unemployment rate is so high?” said Bhai Birendra, RJD MLA.
Awinash Singh, a coaching institute owner, said the number of applications suggested that though youth are acquiring more and more qualifications, there is lack of desired jobs for them. “Government jobs are looked at in terms of better salaries with least amount of efforts. In private sector, you may not see such a situation. Be it banks, LIC, or railways, it’s a win-win situation for applicants,” he added.
