Uttarakhand/Delhi: For the last 10 days, Shivangi* (name changed to protect her identity) has been sitting at Dehradun’s protest sites with hundreds of other young, unemployed diploma holders, hoping that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state government will have a change of heart.
The fatherless 26-year-old with a diploma in civil engineering has been looking for a government job since 2017. Hoping to help her widowed mother educate her three younger siblings, but unable to afford a BTech course at a reputable college, she did a diploma course instead, only to find, after she had graduated, that there were no government jobs in her field. In fact, it had been years since the state government had advertised vacancies for junior engineers. The last notification of vacancies had been posted in 2013, for which the exams were held in 2015.
When finally, in November 2021, the government released lists of vacancies for junior engineer posts under the Uttarakhand Public Service Commission (UKPSC), the candidates noticed something strange. Though the government had advertised about 900 vacancies in its November list, the final list of vacancies released on December 15, 2021, excluded 228 posts in the irrigation department, even though the department genuinely has these vacancies.
“When I saw that the 228 posts had been excluded, I went with a delegation of candidates to the Public Works Department (PWD) minister Satpal Maharaj,” said Shivangi. “He said that this perhaps was a technical error, which would soon be rectified, and the 228 missing posts would be added to the vacancies. But we have spoken to him about nine times since then. We have also spoken to the chief minister and the secretary of the irrigation department. But there has been no further notification of these posts.”
Satpal Maharaj and Pushkar Singh Dhami. Photo: Twitter/@satpalmaharaj
Cut-throat competition
All the protesters at Ekta Vihar are diploma holders in civil engineering. The only government post they are eligible for is that of junior engineer.
“For us, 228 unavailable vacancies means 228 qualified people still without jobs and 228 families at risk,” said Shivangi. “We spend years preparing for these posts. If the government backs off from its promises at the last minute, what are we supposed to do?”
Ekta Vihar, where the protest has been relegated, is an isolated area with very few passers-by. This means the protest has very little chance of being noticed and covered in the press. The candidates had first gathered in Gandhi Park, where they had remained for around a week, but as soon as the regional media began to take notice of the protest, the state police detained the protesters and dropped them off at the Police Line Race Course police station. After that, the candidates were compelled to protest at Ekta Vihar’s protest site, which is currently covered in mud due to unseasonal rain and has no washrooms nearby.
Most of the protesters come from financially marginalised farming families in the far-flung hilly areas of the state. For 24-year-old Happy Ramola, a government job is crucial. The young man from district Bramhakal, where there are 36 villages and only one market, is the son of a tea stall owner.
Ramola completed his diploma in 2016 and has been preparing for the junior engineer recruitment exams ever since.
“It was not possible for my father to bear my expenses any further, so I had to manage on my own,” he said. With no coaching facilities in his village or nearby, he moved to Dehradun and sustained himself by working at a call centre while he studied. “I paid Rs 2,000 a month for my room alone,” he said. “And when I finally hoped that I could land a job, the government did this.”
While all the protesters have applied for the vacancies, the number of available seats has been reduced from approximately 900 in November 2021 to about 667. Some 3,200 candidates have qualified for the final stage of the recruitment process.
“This means that for every five students, only one will be selected. If they added the 228 vacant posts in the irrigation department, our chances of being selected will increase,” noted Ramola.
False assurances?
Government representatives who have met delegations of the protesters told them that the 228 excluded vacancies will eventually be included in the list and that they should focus on preparing for them.
The candidates are also aware that usually, when it comes to vacancies even in the Central government, fewer posts than necessary are first advertised and then more posts are included via an additional notice.
“But we didn’t know that this happens solely in the election season to drive the campaign of the ruling party and that we would be forgotten as soon as the election results were out,” grieved Shivangi.
None of the verbal assurances that the candidates have received from government representatives in the nine months since the December 15 notification have come to pass so far.
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To confirm that there are actual vacancies for the 228 excluded posts, some of the candidates filed a Right to Information (RTI) query, hoping that the response would make their fight easier and their case simpler. When they finally received the response from the PWD, they learned to their surprise that there are even more vacant posts than had been advertised by the government in November 2021. The RTI response showed that the total number of vacant posts in the irrigation department is 328. The notification had advertised 228.
The protests of the candidates continue even amid heavy unseasonal rainfall. The female candidates in particular are miserable. In order to be part of these protests, many of them travelled to Dehradun from far-flung areas of the state and have no place to stay.
“A couple of us who have relatives here go there in the evenings, but for us who do not, it is difficult,” said Sonam, a candidate for one of the junior engineer positions. “I have been staying at a mutual friend’s house for the past three days. I cannot go home without confirmation for this job.”
Chandan, a candidate from Nainital, said, “We are so disturbed right now that we are not even able to focus on preparations for our interviews.”
Most of the candidates are in the 25-27 age group, a stage of life when they really need employment. Two days ago, when they met Satpal Maharaj, the PWD minister, again, he had said, according to Shivangi, “We don’t have money for the department, so how do we add 228 more seats?”
On June 10, 2022, Satpal Maharaj said in a video: “These posts in the irrigation department have been due and we shall complete them at the earliest.”
The candidates say that this video is deeply upsetting. “Posts are advertised on the government website only after the budget is finalised,” they said. “If the government did not have the money, why were we given false assurances? Why did the website show vacant seats in the irrigation department?”
Though there is little response from the authorities, the candidates insist that they will continue their protests. At present, they can at least claim the support of a few opposition leaders from the Indian National Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party.
“All we want is for the government to return these 228 posts to the vacancies so that out of the 3,200 candidates, the maximum are selected,” said the protesters.
Over the last three days, The Wire has been trying to reach PWD minister Satpal Maharaj for a comment on the situation. There has been no response from him so far.
