MARGAO
Just remember the day when thousands of job seekers had burnt midnight oil in the year 2019, by standing in serpentine queues at the Matanhy Saldanha Administrative complex, just to submit their applications for the 147 jobs up for grabs at the South Goa district Collectorate.
Five years later, officials and staff of the South Collectorate were on a different mission during the weekend “ to call up the thousands of job seekers over the official phones to intimate each and every candidate about the ensuing written examination for the posts of Jr. Stenographers, LDCs, Talathis and Multi-Tasking Staff (MTS) staff.
Reason: After the postal intimation sent by the Collectorate on the incomplete addresses of the candidates becoming a subject matter of debate, triggering a row of sorts, the Collectorate officials seemed treading a cautious path, to ensure that each and every candidate is intimated of the written examination schedule over the telephone in addition to other modes of intimation so as not to give any chance for the candidate to complain for not receiving the examination intimation by post on time.
In fact, despite the weekend being a holiday for the government staff, sources said around 45 officials and staff of the district Collectorate were on the job in the Matanhy Saldanha Administrative complex on a one-point mission “ to make telephonic calls to the thousands of candidates who had applied for the 147 posts.
While government officials and staff were enjoying the weekend, celebrating the five-day Ganesh Chathurti, the 45 officials and staff were all drafted for the job to call up the candidates.
At the end of Day one on Saturday, the Collectorate officials made calls to around 8,000 candidates. And, if officials are to believed, the officials and staff will report for work on Sunday as well to complete the job of calling up the remaining candidates.
“The job of calling up the thousands of candidates is tedious in nature. While many a candidate have responded to the calls, there were many others who did not answer, while the mobile phones of others were found on switched off mode”, informed a Collectorate official.
He added; “While one team of staffers are drafted only to make the calls, others lend a helping hand by ticking the names of candidates successfully called up. Besides, staff in on the job to send SMS messages and e-mail to the candidates”.
While a total of 30114 candidates have applied for the 147 posts, officials in private informed that there may be many candidates who have applied for more than one post. “The actual number of candidates may be in the region of 18000-20000”, the official added.
Given that the examination of Jr. Stenographers is scheduled on September 29-30, officials of the South Goa district Collectorate appears racing against time to cap the exercise of calling up the candidates by Sunday.
The telephonic exercise carried out by the officials assumes significance and comes against the backdrop of the fact that the Nodal Officer, South Collectorate had pointed out that candidates have been intimated via the public notice and they are free to download the admit cards from the official website.
