Telangana youth turns restive, seek jobs

HYDERABAD: 'Jobs for unemployed youth' was the most-shouted slogan during the movement for Telangana statehood. With the formation of Telangana state and the euphoria surrounding it subsiding, scores of educated youngsters now wait expectantly for recruitment notifications.

The inordinate delay displayed by the then AP Public Service Commission (APPSC)in issuing notifications and filling up vacancies left many government job aspirants disappointed.

Whatever may be reasons, currently the Telangana state has over 11 lakh unemployed youth, according to the statistics available from the district employment offices.

With the Telangana government making efforts to set up a state public service commission for itself, the unemployed feel that the recruitment agency should be out of political meddling to make it transparent and recruitment should be time-bound.

More importantly, these aspirants hope that the government set up the recruitment agency at the earliest so that they can stand a chance in terms of age.

'The government should set up the recruitment agency within this year. Otherwise, due to age-related issues under eligibility criteria many including me has to opt out of the process,' pointed out Rajesh Kumar of Mahbubnagar district.

Over the years, it has become a practice as it took years to fill up the vacancies after issuing a notification. To correct this anomaly, the chief minister of the then united state N Kiran Kumar Reddy mooted the idea of yearly recruitment in 2012, however it could not take off, said Group-I aspirant A Ram Mohan of Karimnagar.

'So, the Telangana government should prepare a yearly calendar for recruitments, similar to the Union Public Service Commission recruitment process.

For instance, the notification issued in 2008 took nearly four years to fill up vacancies in 2011,' he said, adding that it was not easy for aspirants like him to remain unemployed and take coaching classes by paying exorbitant fees.

Besides, it turned out to be a major election promise made by the politicos in order to woo the youth vote-bank. The frequent legal hassles owing to the goofs- up in the recruitment drive has also contributed to the excessive delays, says Narasimha Reddy of Hyderabad.

'It has become a norm that every recruitment examination gets mired in some legal controversy. In 2011, Group-II examination saw legal hassles due to some technical reasons.

Similarly, the 2012 Group-I exam faced legal issues over mistakes in question paper key. Hence, even today over 15,000 candidates who had appeared for this examination have no idea about their fate,' he added.

When asked about the issue, TJAC chairman M Kodandaram said it was important to form an agency that was corruption-free. 'On UPSC recruitment model, we should chalk out an academic calendar and ensure that these examinations are held on time without any scope for corruption,' he pointed out.