Lucknow: 5.5 lakh apply for 3,142 posts of safai workers

Around 5.5 lakh applications have been received by Lucknow Municipal Corporation against its advertisement of 3,142 posts of safai workers on contractual basis.

Call it the impact of Swacch Bharat campaign or lack of good jobs or rising unemployment among the state youth that around 5.5 lakh applications have been received by Lucknow Municipal Corporation against its advertisement of 3,142 posts of safai workers on contractual basis. It was in September last year when more than 23 lakh people applied against 368 posts of peon in the state secretariat.

Around 5.5 lakh applications have been received by Lucknow Municipal Corporation against its advertisement of 3,142 posts of safai workers on contractual basis. (Shutterstock)

LMC officials are surprised over such a huge response by the candidates. Two rooms are full with the applications.

Now, the LMC has to hire a private company for the job of listing of applications after the employees of LMC refused to sort out the applications. It would take around two months to list the applications. The recruitment would be done through direct interview which may take a few months. Municipal commissioner Udairaj Singh says that the eligibility criteria for the post is nothing but robust physique so that he or she can work well.

The work of safai workers is done mostly by people of Dhanuk and Valmiki communities. But this time the general category members have outnumbered them, said one of the officials on condition of anonymity.

“Going by the sorting trend, till now we have found a large number of applications coming from general category youths. However, final selection would be done after the interview. Besides this, those working with different agencies in various wards of LMC would be given extra weightage in the selection process,” said the official. Nagar Swasthya Adhikari Dr PK Singh said, “We have opened the recruitment process almost after 10 years, that’s why there is a mad rush for contractual posts. LMC is already short of staff with its only 3,255 regular safai workers and 1,500 hired through private agencies.”