Notice issued to private firm in Gujarat for chaos at job interview site

Bharuch: A notice has been issued to a private firm days after nearly 800 persons turned up for walk-in interviews organised by it for 40 vacancies, triggering chaos at the venue in Gujarat’s Bharuch district, an official said on Saturday.

Videos of a massive queue, marked by pushing and shoving as aspirants tried to get a toehold on a ramp leading to the entrance of a hotel where the interviews were being held, had gone viral on Thursday on social media.

On July 2, the company at Jhagadia conducted a recruitment drive at a hotel in Ankleshwar in the district where hundreds of aspirants turned up for 40 vacancies, District Employment Officer Sanjay Gohil said.

“After the video went viral, we learnt about the incident and talked to the plant manager and HR managers of the company and carried out an inspection of the plant on July 12,” he said.

The company had not informed the employment office in advance regarding the notified vacancies, he said.

“We checked the record and issued notice to the company. The district administration needs to be informed in advance so that such a situation does not arise,” Gohil said.

The stampede-like situation occurred due to mismanagement at the recruitment drive venue which caused the collapse of the railing of the ramp, leading to several job-seekers falling off.

The incident, which took place on Tuesday, triggered a verbal duel between the opposition Congress and the ruling BJP.

While the Congress said it had exposed the ‘Gujarat Model’ (of development the ruling party talks about), the BJP said the former was trying to defame the state through the video.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi shared the video on microblogging platform X.

“The ‘disease of unemployment’ has taken the form of an epidemic in India, and BJP-ruled states have become the ‘epicentre’ of this disease. The ‘future of India’ jostling in queues for a common job is the reality of Narendra Modi’s ‘Amritkal’,” Gandhi tweeted in Hindi.

As per the police, the company had arranged walk-in interviews for nearly 40 vacancies in five different roles.

The company booked a hall in a hotel in Ankleshwar expecting some 150 candidates. However, 800 turned up and company officials had to shut the door of the interview hall to control the crowd, which led to the situation shown in the video, Bharuch Superintendent of Police Mayur Chavda had said on Thursday.

No one was injured in the melee and no complaint had come to the police in this regard, Chavda added.

Hitting back at Congress, the BJP said on X, “Efforts to defame Gujarat are being made through a viral video from Ankleshwar. The advertisement for the walk-in interview clearly states they require experienced candidates. This implies those attending the interview are already employed elsewhere. Therefore, the notion of these individuals being unemployed is baseless.” Spreading negativity about Gujarat was a tactic of the Congress, the BJP added.

As per the advertisement, the company was to fill vacancies of shift in-charge, plant operator, supervisor-CDS, fitter-mechanical and executive-ETP at its new plant in the Jhagadia industrial area.