Believe it or not but it is true that over 23 lakh people have applied for 368 posts of peon in UP Sachivalaya (secretariat) and among these applicants 255 are doctorate and over two lakh are post graduates.
“This is astoundingly a high number of applicants. The minimum qualification required for this post is Class V but there are doctorates and engineers who have applied for this job,” a senior official in CM’s office told The Pioneer here on Tuesday.
“This reflects the condition of job market in India and shows desperation of the youth who despite highly educated is ready to do a job where he has to run errands and wash cup and plates,” he said.
The Government has advertised for the posts of peons in State secretariat at the pay scale of `5,200-`20,200. Initially, the person would get around `9,000. Of this 268 posts were for general category candidates and the rest are reserved for the SC, ST and OBC. September 14 was the last date for submission of applications online. Anyone between the age group of 18 and 40 was eligible to apply for this post.
The State Secretariat was abuzz with huge response peon’s post has received. “This is probably first time such a large number of applicants have applied for peon’s job. I am told the Department of Secretariat Administration has received over 23 lakh applications. This is a huge number and shows that there are over 6200 candidates vying for one post,” Manish Sharma, an office-bearer of Uttar Pradesh Sachivalaya Kamachari Sangh said.
Interestingly, maximum 11,21,059 applicants are class 10 pass. There are 53,426 people who have passed class V – the minimum qualification required for the post. Besides 3797 Class VI and 3964 class VII pass people have also applied for the post.
The officers were amazed to see 255 applicants are PhD holders and over a lakh are Post-Graduate degree holders. There are even 78 B.Tech applicants, 31 of whom have specialisation in computer science. The problem the Government is facing now is how to select candidates from this maze of applicants.
Secretary Secretariat administration Prabhat Mittal said that initially the candidates were to be selected through interview. “Now, this is practically impossible to interview such a large number of candidates. So, the rules are now being changed and a written test would be held to screen the candidates,” he said.
“But holding written test would not be that easy too,” says Dr SP Pandey, of Gobind Ballabh Pant Institute of Studies in Rural Development. “As the minimum qualification for the post is class V pass, the question paper should be up to that standard. That paper would a cakewalk for PG student,” he said.
Recently, UP government held written examination for the post of around 1400 lekhpals in the state in which around 27 lakhs appeared.