35,000 vie for 32 posts

Thousands apply for a handful of home guard vacancies in AP

Vijayawada: The height of unemployment in the State was seen in Vijayawada on Saturday when around 5,000 unemployed youth gathered for the recruitment of just 32 home guard posts. Ironically, the police department had received around 35,000 applications for these 32 home guard posts. Shocked at the response, the police deferred the recruitment leading to mild tension in the city. The candidates with a minimum educational qualification of Class VII with light and heavy motor vehicle driving licence were asked to apply for the posts.

The CID wing of the police had called for the applications to fill the vacant posts. The recruited home guards are to be posted in Vijayawada, Guntur, Rajahmundry, Tirupati, Nellore, Kurnool and Visakhapatnam. The department had called for applications sometime in November asking them to attend selections in Vijayawada on December 27. The department, unable to select 32 candidates from 35,000 applications, had decided to postpone the recruitment and a notification was issued to this effect on December 24 asking the applicants not to come for the selection.

However, more than 5,000 candidates have come for the selections and gathered at the Indira Gandhi Municipal Corporation Stadium which was the venue for the selection. As there were no officials from the CID to begin the selection, the candidates, who came from all the 13 districts, held a protest and blocked the traffic on the busy M G Road.

Coming to know about the agitation, Assistant Commissioner of Police Lavanya Lakshmi rushed to the spot and held discussions with the agitating candidates. She told them that the selections were postponed and the same was communicated through the media on December 24.