People’s inclination to government jobs leads to rise in job rackets

New Delhi : With at least six job rackets busted in the national capital in the last two months by the Delhi Police's crime branch, a senior cop has said it reflects the current "job scenario" in the country and people's propensity to government jobs. People who are behind these scams are unemployed as well and the ones who get duped also have no employment, the officer with crime branch said. "And they want government job which has job security and pension."

A senior police officer with the Crime Branch said their unit has solved at least six cases of job rackets in the last two months itself. "The main reason behind such job scams is the rate of unemployment. It can be called a reflection of the current job scenario. There is a large workforce looking for jobs and when an opportunity arises, they just go for it without thinking," the police officer said.

Recently, a job racket was busted by the Crime Branch wherein several youngsters were duped on the pretext of getting them jobs as Assistant Managers in Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). A senior police officer posted with the district police said through these rackets candidates are lured in the pretext of getting them jobs in Railways and Army since they hire in bulk and also issue advertisements in newspapers.

"Some of the rackets that we have busted have involved the accused duping the victims on the promise of getting them employed in the Indian Railways. People are get convinced because they see jobs in railways being advertised through online platforms and newspapers", the officer said. In May this year, the police had busted a fake Territorial Army recruitment racket with the arrest of three accused who had duped three men after charging them good amount of money.

The job rackets these days are not merely about duping youngsters in one go but are well organised with an elaborate modus operandi. For instance, the recent ONGC job racket which was busted (listed above) saw the accused getting the victims access to to the "highly secure" Krishi Bhawan where the candidates underwent interview, the police said. The racket had connivance of some junior level government employees who facilitated their entry in Krishi Bhawan and even offered them appointment letters. Police officials said that some of the rackets have also seen the candidates receiving appointment letters and salary for a couple of months and even attending some training workshops before joining the job. Those who are running job rackets do not have to sweat out in search of their victims, said a crime branch officer.

"Once they find a victim, that victim leads them to his friends and relatives who are also unemployed and in this way, these job rackets thrive because of word-of-mouth advertisement," said the senior crime branch officer. The accused in most of these rackets are well-educated and have sound knowledge of computer and in some cases, the accused have been found to be former employees of public sector units and defence, said an investigator with the Crime Branch. "The accused before embarking on their task, conduct a thorough task, which includes a thorough study of the websites, appointment letters which have close resemblance to that of the government letter heads", he added. In 2013, Narendra Modi had promised to provide one crore jobs to the youth of the country if voted to power at the Centre.

In July this year, Minister of Labour and Unemployment, Santosh Gangwar had told the Rajya Sabha the government is encouraging private sector to generate jobs, fast-tracking various projects involving substantial investment and increasing public expenditure on schemes like Pradhan Mantri Employment Generation Programme (PMEG) and MGREGS among others, he said. Job opportunities have not come down in the country and even global data shows that unemployment rate in India is lower, he had said the government will come out with unemployment data in the next two months.