Odisha job fair likely to be put off again

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Mar 5:

The proposed Nijukti Mela (job fair) for unemployed technical students in Odisha, announced by the Technical Education department, has now become a distant possibility as the department has thought of withdrawing from its decision following the reluctance of the companies.

A high level review meeting on the issue was held here on Wednesday. The meeting, presided over by Industries minister Debi Prasad Mishra, discussed about how to rope in the companies to participate in the fair.

Present at the meeting, an official who is in touch with these companies, said most of the companies invited to the fair, have expressed their inability in providing jobs citing fall in their production due closure of mining exploration, non-allocation of coalmines and acute shortage of raw materials.

They also said that the some companies have refused to recruit the students of previous years and set a condition that they would only recruit the final year students who must not have any back papers, the official said.

“The software companies and industries are neither cooperating with us and nor giving any specific information about the number of students they would recruit. It would become a matter of utter embarrassment for us if we fail in our mission to provide employment to nearly 40,000 candidates who have applied for jobs in the Mela. Keeping this in mind, we have decided to hand over the database of the candidates we have prepared to these companies. Basing on the database of the candidates, the companies will inform us about their requirement, the type and nature of jobs and the salary they would pay. After we get their feedback, we would provide them the candidates of their choice. After the test of the candidates, we would select candidates five to ten times the number of vacancies,” the official said and requested the minister to personally write letters to these companies.

Giving details about the test which will be conducted before the Mela, the official said a 90-minute multiple choice computer-based test would be held in two phases.

The first phase of the test of one-hour duration will be on ‘Ability Test comprising Communication and Verbal Aptitude’, ‘Qualitative Ability Test’, ‘Logical Resume’, ‘Computer Ability’ and ‘General Knowledge and Current Affairs’, while the second phase test, of 30 minute duration, will be on subjects from Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering and IT. Students of Engineering, M.Tech and Pharmacy having the aforesaid subjects, will appear in the examination.

The total marks for the first and second paper will be 60 and 30 respectively. The question papers would be prepared by a core committee.

“The marks secured by the candidates in the first paper would be displayed in the database through which the companies would select them. Later, the companies will make direct recruitment on the basis of the career marking of the selected students,” the official pointed out.

Among others, Steel and Mines minister Prafulla Mallick, Commerce and Transport minister Ramesh Majhi, IT minister Pranab Prakash Das, Technical Education minister Sanjay Dasburma and secretaries and senior officials of the concerned departments were present at the meeting.