When MBAs aspire to be Messengers

Jaipur, March 21 (IANS) The interviewers at the government agriculture department in Rajasthan's Alwar town were in for a surprise when applicants with MBA and MCA degrees, as also from technical streams, appeared before them for jobs as messengers in the Class IV category.

The Rajasthan Agriculture Marketing Department had invited applications for posts of 140 messengers all over the state, the minimum qualification being a class five pass-out.

"We received over 9,000 applications for 14 posts in Alwar district and we were surprised to see that almost 20-25 percent of the applications received were from people who were graduates or above. Some people even had MBA, MCA and B.Ed degrees and some of them had an engineering background," a senior official of the Directorate of Agriculture Marketing told IANS.

The interviews started on March 10 and are slated to continue till April 16.

The basic salary for the post, for which the age limit is 18-35 years is in the Rs. 5,200-Rs.20,200 scale.

"I applied for this job as I was not getting a job of my choice. Once I get this government job I will start looking for other options," an applicant, who has just cleared his MBA from a private college, told IANS.

"People say that the recession is over, but for me it has not. After completing my engineering course from a private institute, I was finding it difficult to get a job. So I applied here. A government job is much better than a private job," another candidate appearing for the interview told IANS on condition of not being named.

During 2014-15 (up to December 2014), 136,752 jobless people were registered at various employment exchanges in the state.