Surajpur being a newly formed district [Jan 2012], recruitment is one activity that is always under focus. And so was taken up the task of appointing an Assistant Project Officer (APO) for NREGA in the DRDA some time in July 2012 which ended as a long chase - probably the first time the government would have chased someone to give her a job!
The process started with publishing advertisements and inviting applications after which the candidates were asked to appear for written exams. A major challenge in a democratic setup is convincing all individuals about the authenticity of the results. And the task becomes much more difficult when the written exam is a subjective paper. Thus, the process followed is that after publishing results, applicants are given a few days to raise objections and their concerns are addressed. It is a slow and painful process that took us till October 2012 to resolve. However, a talented young individual was selected and we were happy to have another helping hand in our staff - starved organization.
The joining letter was sent to the young man and he was given a week's time to join. Almost 20 such notices of appointment are also sent to various departments at the state, district and block level. Talented young men don't come without their issues, and after multiple calls to him on the last day given for joining, we realized that he wasn't going to join. Delayed by another week, we decided to send the joining letter to the next candidate on the list - a young lady this time. Young ladies too have their idiosyncracies and the address on our madame's application was too confusing to understand and without a phone number. We were all convinced that India Post, with all the issues of its own, would never be able to deliver the letter to this lady's address in time. However, the 20 notices of appointment had to be sent again and so was sent the letter of joining as well. But it was also decided that we would try and find the lady's address and hand deliver it to her so that she could join on time. Thus began the hunt for our APO.
We first enquired about the locality. The name of the locality was itself misspelt - a local thankfully helped us identify it. The house number mentioned in the address was the number given by the municipality, and there is no way of finding out which house has which number other than guessing where the particular number could be and then asking individual households. A local politician came to our help who, based on where the people of that caste lived, gave us a rough idea where the house could be. Without the lady's father's name in the address even our local politician found it difficult!
The next step was then to ask individual households in the area identified. We got lucky there, as the first family we contacted, being of the same cast as our madame, knew that house. They also knew that the girl had applied for a job and thus followed some curious questions about why we were searching for her and if we had appointed her. Excited as we were, we told them the entire story about the job. Moving on from there in the direction told to us, finding the lady's house even then took us four more consultations and answering curious questions about why the search. Luckily, before the entire mohalla could know that there was a search going on for the lady and we had a job for her, we found her house in a discrete part of the mohalla.
Thus, after the long journey, the letter had finally reached its destination! There s great hope that with madame joining in this Monday [November 2012], the 5 months' hunt for an APO will end too!!!
The process started with publishing advertisements and inviting applications after which the candidates were asked to appear for written exams. A major challenge in a democratic setup is convincing all individuals about the authenticity of the results. And the task becomes much more difficult when the written exam is a subjective paper. Thus, the process followed is that after publishing results, applicants are given a few days to raise objections and their concerns are addressed. It is a slow and painful process that took us till October 2012 to resolve. However, a talented young individual was selected and we were happy to have another helping hand in our staff - starved organization.
The joining letter was sent to the young man and he was given a week's time to join. Almost 20 such notices of appointment are also sent to various departments at the state, district and block level. Talented young men don't come without their issues, and after multiple calls to him on the last day given for joining, we realized that he wasn't going to join. Delayed by another week, we decided to send the joining letter to the next candidate on the list - a young lady this time. Young ladies too have their idiosyncracies and the address on our madame's application was too confusing to understand and without a phone number. We were all convinced that India Post, with all the issues of its own, would never be able to deliver the letter to this lady's address in time. However, the 20 notices of appointment had to be sent again and so was sent the letter of joining as well. But it was also decided that we would try and find the lady's address and hand deliver it to her so that she could join on time. Thus began the hunt for our APO.
We first enquired about the locality. The name of the locality was itself misspelt - a local thankfully helped us identify it. The house number mentioned in the address was the number given by the municipality, and there is no way of finding out which house has which number other than guessing where the particular number could be and then asking individual households. A local politician came to our help who, based on where the people of that caste lived, gave us a rough idea where the house could be. Without the lady's father's name in the address even our local politician found it difficult!
The next step was then to ask individual households in the area identified. We got lucky there, as the first family we contacted, being of the same cast as our madame, knew that house. They also knew that the girl had applied for a job and thus followed some curious questions about why we were searching for her and if we had appointed her. Excited as we were, we told them the entire story about the job. Moving on from there in the direction told to us, finding the lady's house even then took us four more consultations and answering curious questions about why the search. Luckily, before the entire mohalla could know that there was a search going on for the lady and we had a job for her, we found her house in a discrete part of the mohalla.
Thus, after the long journey, the letter had finally reached its destination! There s great hope that with madame joining in this Monday [November 2012], the 5 months' hunt for an APO will end too!!!
1 comment:
good to read that anshuman . so you are living up to the expectations of being a 'sherpa'.
keep posting,
phani kiran
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