PANAJI
More than a thousand aspirants turned up for a total of 64 jobs advertised at the North Goa Collectorate taking officials by surprise and forcing them to restructure the recruitment process.
The long snaking queue which began right at the entrance of the North Goa Collector’s office wound itself right around iconic complex which includes the offices of the Institute Menezes Braganza, the Department of Mines and Geology, the Department of Printing and Stationery, the Goa Police headquarters, and the Panaji Town Police station on the other side.
Estimates placed the number of people who had queued up from 1,000 to 3,000.
Speaking to The Goan, Revenue Minister Rohan Khaunte said the advertisement clearly stated that the recruitment will be on first-come first-serve basis and that tokens were issued to the first 200-odd participants while the rest had to return empty-handed.
“Response to the 11-month contract was much more than what we expected and we had to devise a system where the first 200 persons were given tokens,” Khaunte said.
The length of the queue took many passersby aback including Calangute MLA Michael Lobo who intervened, walked into the Collector’s office and sought that the recruitment be done differently.
“I think the thought process was not right. The authorities did not imagine the number of applicants would cross 2-3 thousand. These youth have come from far off places and I don’t think their interview will happen today. I went to the Collector and asked her how she would handle this?” Lobo told media persons later.
“Finally they came out with a solution that the applicants would be given token numbers and that they would be called after three or four days in batches”, Lobo said.
Lamenting that the recruitment process was not correct, Lobo said, “they should first put a mechanism in place, ask for applications by post and then call them in batches”.
