RAYAGADA: Even as the Employment Exchanges (Compulsory Notification of Vacancies), Act, 1959 mandates that 95 per cent of the employees in companies having staff strength of 24 or above must be recruited through the local employment exchange, companies, both in private and public sectors in Rayagada district, are flouting it brazenly.
Currently, more than 15,000 unemployed youths registered with the employment exchanges at Rayagada and Gunupur remain jobless due to preferential treatment to outsiders by the companies. This despite the fact that companies should give priority to the locals in providing employment under their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as per the norms. As a result, the two employment exchanges in the district virtually remain non-functional.
Companies like Utkal Alumina International Limited, Vedanta Alumina Limited, JK Paper Mill and Indian Metal and Ferro Alloys (IMFA) besides more than 50 small scale industries allegedly do not seek information from employment exchanges for recruitment.
Instead, they opt for online recruitment drives and advertisements in national newspapers which the locals are not able to access.
District Employment Officer Rajendra Prasad Tete said, “We regularly verify vacancies in public and private companies. Big companies should conduct recruitment drives for registered and qualified candidates of the district first. If no one meets their requirements, they can start their own recruitment process.”
Meanwhile, in a job mela organised in the district last year, only 215 of 2,000 registered candidates got jobs. Most of the jobs were for security guards.
Big companies had not recruited any local candidates from the job fair, Tete said.
On the other hand, the training programmes conducted by employment exchanges for the benefit of candidates are not sufficient to meet the modern day requirements, said Gauri Nayak, a job aspirant.
In 2015-16, about 1,000 candidates had undergone short- term training programmes for electrical jobs, data entry operator, driver and tailoring but very few got jobs, said Tete.