News & Pics: Hemanath Padubidri
Daijiworld Media Network—Udupi (RD/CN)

Udupi, Nov 26: “We have not come here to waste our precious time and money on unfruitful things. We have been taken for a ride”, was the refrain of unemployed youth who attended the job fair organized
by the Karnataka Vocational Training and Skills Development Board at Ammanni Ramanna Shetty Kalyana Mantap here on Friday November 26.

The jobs announced at the job fair were 5,797, and only 47 job aspirants arrived. Unemployed from all over the state had arrived for the job fair. The majority of physically disabled who arrived for the job fair were from Kundapur while only nine physically disabled were from taluks of Udupi, Puttur, and Mangalore, and the districts of Haveri, Chikmagalur, Shimoga, and Hassan, attended the job fair.

Although there were separate arrangements to interview them, the interviewer’s discourtesy brought them to tears. They were cursing themselves for having attended the fair.

Many of those who attended said the state authorities could have instead set up a small scale industry from the money spent on organizing the job fair. They further sought an explanation about how much attendees of previous job fairs had benefited from appointment letters issued by various companies.

Udupi is famous for south Indian cuisine but the cooks employed at the job fair to prepare food for the job aspirants were from distant Tumkur. The arrangements were made by people from Bangalore though there are many in Udupi who are qualified to do this.

Cameramen and videographers were also from Bangalore, but the volunteers were the locals who rendered services for free.

Exploitation goes on unabated: Job fairs are being organized in various parts of the state besides zonal
job fairs held in the past. Nearly four lac aspirants have registered in job fairs of which 2.5 lac secured employment according to the organizers. Despite the tall claims by the organizers, none of the
employed have been taken in as regulars. They were initially paid Rs 8,000 per month and this was gradually halved citing various reasons.

Question paper:

How to make tea? How to withdraw money from ATM? How to download train tickets? How to achieve equality among urban and rural people? In case of inequality, how to achieve equality? The job
aspirants were expected to spontaneously answer such questions.

Each job aspirant paid Rs 375 to register at the job fair and the middlemen take away a major share of this. The job aspirant gets nothing for all the trouble taken.

The venue was the Ammanni Ramanna Shetty Kalyana Mantap booked at a cost of Rs 20 lac. It was horrific inside without proper ventilation. The food facilities and other sundry expenses came upto Rs 8 lac. The state authorities achieve nothing by organizing such job fairs spending huge amounts. Instead they can set up a small scale industry in a rural village to benefit unemployed youth.

The ball is now in the court of the state authorities.