india

Updated: Jan 22, 2019 11:21 IST

When only one candidate turned up at the job fair in Ludhiana on Monday under the Punjab government’s ‘Ghar Ghar Rozgar’ scheme, the representatives of a private cab aggregator and a food delivery marketplace who organised the camp were left wondering what went wrong.

The excitement on the faces of the eagerly waiting organisers, who had put up four canopies at Pratap Chowk near Sangeet Cinema in anticipation of large footfall, turned into a disappointment as they kept waiting for jobseekers from 10am till 5pm.

This despite the fact that the district bureau of employment and enterprises claimed to have informed as many as 1,571 job aspirants about the one-day fair besides issuing a press release with information published in local newspapers.

Later, officials blamed the poor show on dip in temperature coupled and the slight drizzle, saying the aspirants did not venture out of their homes besides a lack of awareness about the scheme.

The fair was organised under the government scheme by OLA, a cab aggregator, and Foodpanda, a mobile-app based food delivery marketplace, to hire workers for riding bike taxis and delivering food items while companies like Honda, Hero and TVS also showed up to finance vehicles for those who do not have one.

Umesh Sharma, senior business development manager of OLA, said they were planning to hire at least 70 people at the job fair. “But rain played a spoilsport and wasted our efforts. As we kept waiting for a long time, only one candidate came. I wish the government will soon organise another job fair so that we could hire more people,” he said.

“In the last job fair held in December, around 200 candidates had come with inquiries and we hired 43 people. This time, we were expecting more than 100 inquires against just four-five received today.”

Gurbax Singh, 30, the lone candidate to get himself registered with OLA, said, “I came to know about the job fair through a social networking site a few days ago. I have done a diploma in mechanical engineering and I am currently working as a quality engineer with a private firm in Ludhiana.”

Deputy chief executive officer of district bureau of employment and enterprises Navdeep Singh also cited bad weather as the reason for the low footfall.

“Another reason could be lack of promotion. During the last fair, the companies had started promoting the event a month before. But this time, they just started a week ago,” he claimed.

District public relations officer (DPRO) Prabhdeep Singh said he got information about the fair on January 18 only and started promoting it on social media.

“The authorities should have made announcement in villages where unemployed youth are more than the city,” he said.