Candidates selected without interview

The interviews were conducted at the Post Graduate Government College,Sector 11 in July for the posts of lecturers on contract basis in five government arts and science colleges in Chandigarh.

While Rakesh Kumar (under OBC category) got the post of Hindi lecturer,Sunita Kumari (under SC category) was selected as lecturer for Environment Education. The status under their interview marks column clearly showed ‘absent’.

The selection committee members,though accepted that most of the seats were lying vacant in the reserved categories,as there were no applications for the posts under these categories in various subjects,they denied selecting any candidate without an interview.

“The interview marks were mandatory while calculating the final list. If that is the case of these lecturers,there must have been some error,which can occur as the selection process was manual. If such an error has occurred,it would be checked and rectified,” said the co-ordinator of the selection committee,Dr Shayam Sunder,who is also the principal of PGGC-11.

Such ‘errors’ are not new to the UT Education department. In the recent recruitment of teachers for 105 city government schools,there were numerous anomalies,which were later rectified when these were highlighted by newspapers.

The transparency of the recruitment process was challenged by candidates through various representations submitted with the department. While the department initially tried to evade the complaints by citing ‘human error’ and ‘compilation mistakes’ as reason,they later revised the results.

Despite receiving objections from more than 80 applicants for various discrepancies in the preliminary list,the department failed to conduct the appointments in a ‘fair’ manner.

Also,such is the state of appointments in government colleges that out of 289 posts advertised recently,around 25 did not join even after receiving appointment letters; not a single candidate applied for more than 40 posts.

Among those who joined,some left within a month after joining.

“Around 40 seats are still lying vacant,which includes the reserved seats for which no application was received. Also,those who applied could not fulfill the eligibility criteria. Around 30 reserved seats would be de-reserved. Many have quit after they got selected in some private colleges,which were offering regular appointments against the six-month contract jobs offered in the government colleges,which would expire on February 28,2011,” said Dr Sunder.