The lure of a government job, howsoever small, is not diminishing anytime soon. In Uttar Pradesh, advertisement for 368 openings for peons in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Secretariat has attracted 23 lakh applications. The candidates include those having passed Class V – the minimum qualification required – to those having completed their PhD. In between there are graduates, postgraduates, engineers, MBAs and others.

Lucknow: The lure of a government job, howsoever small, is not diminishing anytime soon. In Uttar Pradesh, advertisement for 368 openings for peons in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Secretariat has attracted 23 lakh applications. The candidates include those having passed Class V – the minimum qualification required – to those having completed their PhD. In between there are graduates, postgraduates, engineers, MBAs and others.

The advertisement for these vacancies was published on 10 August in newspapers and online. All applications had to be filed online, the last date for which expired on 14 September. It mentioned that there were 368 posts of anusevaks (peons) and farrash (janitors or floor cleaners) in the Secretariat Services. These Group D posts included 218 for the general category, 76 posts for SC category, 5 for ST category and 69 for Others Backward Class category.

The minimum education qualification for applicants was to have passed class 5 examination, to know cycling and the ability to read and write Hindi, with the minimum age being 18 years and maximum 40 years.

The job description includes answering the bell from inside the office, cleaning up, serving water and tea, moving files from one desk or room to another and keeping them properly.

But perhaps the most attractive part was the pay scale. The scale was Rs 5200 to Rs 20,200 with Grade Pay Rs 1800, with the minimum take-home being in the range of Rs 15,000 per month.

Prabhat Mittal, Secretary (Secretariat Administration), has said that he was amazed at the number of applications. The selection process, which required only interview, would take about four years if the interviews were conducted at the rate of 40 per day in one selection board, six days a week for seven hours per working day. Obviously, at least 25 selection boards will have to be constituted to complete the exercise in less than two years.

The applicants include 255 PhD holders, 1,52,730 engineering and technical degree holders, 24,969 postgraduates, 7,500 ordinary graduates, 1,87,2660 having passed class XII to X, 2,16,763 having passed class IX to VI and 53,426 having passed class V only.

One of the applicants, Alok Chaurasia, an electronics engineer from Lucknow, had been jobless for more than one year. He said candidly that it was better to get a lowly job than sitting idle. To support his argument, he even recalled how Prime Minister Narendra Modi reportedly was a tea-seller and many tycoons did petty jobs in the beginning.

Another applicant Dharam Pal from Barabanki, a postgraduate, said if selected he would not continue in the job for long as he will keep trying for a better job in keeping with his qualification. Asked if he knew any PhD holders who had applied for this job, he said there was one from Jaunpur but he could not be contacted. Another graduate applicant from Lucknow said most of the PhDs were from outside Lucknow since he knew some of them. One such applicant from Sitapur, having completed his PhD last year from a university in Bareilly, said with a request not to mention his name that if he got this job he would not continue in it for long.

According to a Lucknow report, middlemen have already become overactive, offering a sure job against the payment of up to Rs 10 lakh. Om Prakash, a teacher in Gorakhpur who called up a relative in Lucknow seeking help in getting a job for his son, said he had been advised to be ready with Rs 5 lakh now and the rest at the time of interview to ensure a job.

The representatives of the government have interesting responses to this amazing response. The Minister for Skill Development Abhishek Mishra was quoted by a television channel as saying that it was because the “Government is a better paymaster.” Another minister said it was because the laptops distributed by the Akhilesh Yadav government had made it possible for a large number of applicants in villages and remote places to apply online.

However, a history professor Rahul Shukla said a government job, that too in the Secretariat that is the seat of the government, offered the possibility of proximity with government functionaries at all levels, politicians and others, besides handling the visitors and their files. “In addition to the regular pay, there are immense possibilities of unnamed perks, nuisance value and speed money.” This, according to him, more than made up for the low-level post and job description.

The vacancies for 260 similar posts had been advertised last in 2006, when about 1 lakh persons had applied. The army of unemployed in the age group of 15-35 in Uttar Pradesh is set to touch the 1-crore number by 2017, as mentioned in a report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). These will be in addition to the backlog of around 32 lakh unemployed, who are already in the queue awaiting their chance.