In a major crackdown, around 7,000 people applied for the 13 waiter job posts at the Maharashtra secretariat canteen. Surprisingly among those 7,000 most of the applicants are college graduates who applied for the ‘waiter’ post, giving credence to reports of rising unemployment in the state. Well, the job advertisement only required candidates to be educated up to Class 4.
Attacking the ruling BJP in the state as well in the Centre, Nationalist Congress Party leader Nawab Malik termed it as BJP government’s ‘failure’ in fulfilling its promises and generate adequate employment opportunities for its youth. "There are no new industries coming up in Maharashtra, and even construction projects are stalled. There are simply no new projects. There is a full-blown crisis and the people are suffering," he said.
The BJP government in the state denied the allegation. "We cannot stop anyone from applying anywhere. We have added many jobs and the numbers are healthy," insisted Maharashtra Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar.
According to data, the number of unemployed people in the state rose from 33.56 lakh in 2016 to 42.2 lakh in 2018 while the number of people getting gainful employment dipped by 17,000 in the same period.
However, Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Prakash Javadekar recently rejected claims that such instances point at rising unemployment in the country.