Taking a leaf from the book of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday interacted with girl students from various departments of the Panjab University here and promised to scrap the application fee for recruitments in Government services after his party forms the Government in the State.
He was told in the interaction that the State Government charges substantially large amount as fee for various recruitments. The students said the government was deliberately charging large amount as application fee with the number of applicants running into tens of thousands even for a few vacancies with an obvious intention to make money.
“Despite not affording it and knowing it well that the vacancies are limited, we have to pay the fee”, a girl student said, while pointing out, compared to that the Union Public Service Commission charged a nominal application fee for recruitments.
Capt Amarinder observed that this must be yet another way of the bankrupt government to generate money. “But this is virtual cheating and robbery with the desperate and helpless unemployed who you know will pay any amount you charge as application fee even when the vacancies are very limited as compared to the number of applicants”, he said.
The girl students also raised the issue of discrimination and also suggested special reservation for women in the jobs. They also wanted that the education standards in the Government run institutions must be improved.
Capt Amarinder promised the students that he also favoured reservation for economically weaker sections without disturbing those who are already getting these benefits.
Spokesperson of the Congress and former Union Minister Manish Tewari and lt Gen TS Shergill were also present during the interaction.