As many as 7,000 persons, mostly graduates, had applied for 13 vacant posts of canteen waiters in Mantralaya, the Maharashtra secretariat, an official said on Friday.
The government official said a 100-mark written exam was recently conducted for the posts, for which educational qualification required was having passed Class IV.
"The exam formalities got completed on December 31 and currently the joining process is on. Out of the 13 selected applicants, eight are men and the rest women. Two-three people are yet to submit their documents and officially join," he said.
He further said of the selected persons, 12 are graduates and one has passed Class 12, adding that the maximum applicants for the 13 posts were graduates and those who had cleared Class 12.
He informed that the age group of selected applicants was between 25-27 years.
Slamming the state government over the induction of graduates as waiters in the Mantralaya canteen, Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council Dhananjay Munde said ministers and secretaries should be ashamed of taking the services of educated individuals.
"Seven thousand applicants for merely 13 posts is a blatant example of the employment conditions in the country and Maharashtra. It is unfortunate graduates were selected for the posts when the eligibility criteria was Class 4 pass," the NCP leader said.
He sought to know how would ministers and secretaries feel taking food, tea and snacks from double graduates.
Instead of being shameful about this, the government will term it a part of the state's progress, Munde claimed.
Questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi on providing employment to over two crore people in his tenure, Munde said, "Recently in Maharashtra, 10.5 lakh people had applied for 852 vacant police posts. Similarly, one crore unemployed youth applied for 10,000 posts in the railways."
He said in 2018, one crore people lost their jobs, out of which 65 lakh were women, adding that programmes like Make in India, Make in Maharashtra, Skill India were failures.
Munde said decisions like demonetisation and GST had finished small and medium industries which, in turn, had led to an increase in unemployment.
PTI
