In what could come as an egg on the face of the ruling Trinamool Congress— credited with introducing a number of pro-people schemes like free ration to free health —which has won the recently concluded Assembly elections by a huge thumping majority qualified engineers and postgraduates have swelled the ranks of 8,000 applicants for the posts of lab assistants popularly called “Doms” in the mortuary parlance.
According to reports about 100 engineers, 500 postgraduates and 2,200 graduates have applied for the job of so-called “lab assistants” in the Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Department of state-owned Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital, a senior official said adding out of the total number of applicants 784 people including 84 women had been called for written test scheduled on August 1.
“This is quite surprising because overqualified including engineers, postgraduates and graduates have applied for this post… whereas usually relatives of ‘lab assistants’ who are used to do such jobs only apply for these posts … This has happened for the first time,” the official said.
The authorities had last December issued a notification seeking application for the post of lab assistants entitled to a monthly remuneration of Rs 15,000 per month.
The notification for the job-seekers was put at “at least class 8 pass” who had to be between 18 and 40 years old.
"Several applicants are overqualified for the job. It is quite a shock that engineers, postgraduates and graduates have applied for this post. This has happened for the first time. We generally get applications from people whose family members have been working as ''dom''," the official added.
When contacted one of these applicants said he had no other option but to apply for the job because he had to take care of his old parents and pay off the loans taken for studying engineering. “I have to pay the loan … there is no job for me here in Bengal … I am a mechanical engineer and had been working with a private bank’s insurance department on commission basis … I earn roughly about Rs 8,000 which has further dipped in corona times … I cannot go to Bangalore or elsewhere leaving my parents … so I had to apply for the post,” said the candidate.
Another aspirant a postgraduate in Education said he was working in a private school for Rs 2,500 per month “but now even that is gone because of on-line classes … I had been earning some money giving tuitions but that too has been stopped due to pandemic … There is no hope in getting scanty government jobs which are either sold or get entangled in court cases … what do I do … I have to feed my family.”