Biswa Bhusan Mohapatra
Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Sept 17: A special recruitment drive for technical and professional graduates has become a dream for about 40, 000 job seeker, who registered their names by paying `100 each last year.
The minister of erstwhile employment and technical education and training (ETET) department and now the skill development and technical education (SD&TE) department Sanjay Das Burma August 12 last year had announced to conduct the recruitment drive from September 17 to 20. However, the department failed to rope in industries, companies and recruiters to take part in the job fair which was to be organised by the department in collaboration with Biju Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT).
The government had set a target of inviting about 300 companies for the fair but only 35 companies had evinced interest to join the drive.
Last year, the minister had said many potential recruiters are expressing their inability to attend the drive before Diwali for which the drive was postponed and the new date would be announced post-Diwali. However, no efforts were made in this regard so far.
When Orissa POST tried to find out the status of the recruitment drive-2014 the link in the BPUT website showed – “404 – File or directory not found. The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.”
When asked about the reason behind the delay, a senior official of the department on condition of anonymity said, “Companies are not showing interest to participate in the drive because of the market slowdown. Most of the steel and aluminium industries here are saying that they are not in a position to hire more professionals.”
The official said companies like Vedanta are in a mood to lay off some employees. “If, we will direct them to join in the fair, they cannot do it,” the official stated.
BPUT student protection council (BSPC) president Biplab Kumar Mohanty said the job aspirants are under severe mental stress and the government should immediately announce the date for the drive.
