Believe it or not, but over 23 lakh people have applied for 368 posts of peon in UP Sachivalaya (secretariat). Among these applicants, 255 hold doctoral degrees while over two lakhs are post-graduates.
“This is astoundingly high number of applicants. Can anyone imagine that over 23 lakh people will apply for class IV post IJ 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 the CM’s office told ‘The Pioneer’ in lucknow on Tuesday.
“This reflects the condition of job market in India and shows desperation of the youths who is ready to do even minial jobs despite being highly educated,” he said.
The Government has advertised for the posts of peons in State Secretariat at the pay scale of Rs 5,200 -20,200. Initially, the person would get around Rs 9,000. Of this, 268 posts are for general category candidates and the rest are reserved for the SC, ST and OBC. The last date for submission of applications online was fixed for September 14. Anyone between the age group of 18 and 40 was eligible to apply for this post.
The State Secretariat was abuzz with the huge response that the peon’s post has received. “This is probably forthe first time that such a large number of applicants have applied for a 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,” said an office-bearer of Uttar Pradesh Sachivalaya Kamachari Sangh, Manish Sharma.
Interestingly, maximum of 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. There are even 78 B.Tech – 31 of them have specialization in computer science. The problem 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, the UP government held written examination for the post of around 1400 lekhpals in the state in which around 27 lakhs appeared.
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