AICC spokesperson Gourav Vallabh released the data of these notified-yet-unfilled posts at the official briefing and alleged that around Rs 1,025 crore were collected from applicants by way of fees for the application forms. He called this as yet another “jumla” by the Modi government to make “a cruel joke” on the unemployed youth during this time of economic crisis and vanishing jobs.
Quoting official data, Vallabh said that the Railway Recruitment Board had issued a notification for Group D recruitments on February 23, 2019, for 1,03,769 vacancies. He said around 1.16 crore applicants applied. However, the RRB is yet to announce the date for the examinations even after one and a half years of the notification. He claimed that approximately Rs 500 crore was collected as fees for application forms.
He based his calculation on the premise that of the 1.16 applicants, half belonged to the general and OBC category who had to pay Rs 500 per application. The rest –– SC/ST/women –– paid Rs 250 per form.
In the second category, Vallabh said, the RRB notified 64,371 posts of Assistant Loco Pilots and technicians on February 3, 2018, for which 47 lakh people applied. Though the results of the tests were declared in December 2019, no appointments have been made so far.
Similarly, he said that RRB made a notification on February 28, 2019, for 36,277 vacancies of non-technical popular category (NTPC) posts for which 1.26 crore applied.
“While around Rs 500 crore was collected as application fee, the RRB is yet to announce the examination date,” he said. The Staff Selection Commission (SSC) too had notified on May 5, 2018, for 11,271 vacant posts for Combined Graduate Level (CGL). Over 25 lakh people applied for these posts. “Though around Rs 25 crore was collected as application fee, the applicants are still waiting for the results of the tier-3 examination,” he said.
Taking a dig at the Modi regime, Vallabh said: “If Modi ji made a false promise of Rs 15 lakh each to all ahead of the 2014 LS polls, the Modi government played the cruel joke of false promises about jobs to our unemployed youth ahead of the 2019 LS elections. I want to know whether the government is trying to revive the economy with that Rs 1,025 crore it had collected as fees from the application forms from these misguided unemployed youth”.
Later, Rahul Gandhi tweeted in Hindi: “120 million jobs missing, $5 trillion economy disappears, income of common citizen disappears, the prosperity and security of the country disappeared, If you ask a question, the answer disappears. #Development has gone missing”.