KOLKATA: Reflecting the sorry state of joblessness in West Bengal, over more than 20 lakh applicants — including many with PhD, MSc and MA degree — applied for 2,000 posts of forest guard for which candidates should be at least 8th class pass. The post offers Rs 10,000 in monthly remuneration.
Flooded by the unexpected number of applications, the forest department is struggling to find out a way out to take interview of the candidates.
Sources in the forest department said this is the first time that guards are being recruited on the model of civic volunteers’ recruitment.
“The decision of recruiting these guards was taken to increase job opportunity for youths,’’ said an official of forest department.
Many applicants will not have to appear in a written test and those selected will appear before an interview board.
“Since, the required eligibility is Class VIII level education, we expect minimum cancellation of applications during scrutiny. We found postgraduate and PhD applicants among the candidates. Now taking interview of such a large number of candidates is itself a challenge.’’
The interview board comprises two divisional forest officers and one chief conservator of forest.
“We requested our seniors to increase the number of interview boards else completing the recruitment process will be an impossible task.’’
“We will have to take interview on Saturdays and Sundays also to complete the recruitment process. The applications stashed in 45 gunny bags were sent for scrutiny,’’ Ramprasad Badana, divisional forest officer of Purulia, said.