Near-stampede at Air India’s interview as 15,000 turn up for 1,800 vacancies

Chaotic scenes were witnessed in Mumbai’s Kalina on Tuesday as thousands of jobseekers turned up for a walk-in interview conducted by Air India Airport Services Ltd.

Around 15,000 people turned up for 1,800 vacancies for the post of handyman and utility agent, a person who performs various repair and maintenance tasks.

Despite the limited vacancies, a huge crowd turned up outside the recruitment office. As the situation went out of control and to prevent a stampede-like situation, the applicants were asked to deposit their resumes and leave the spot.

George Abram, general secretary, Aviation Industry Employees Guild, said the recruitment process was mismanaged and claimed that 50,000 jobseekers had turned up for the interview.

“There were around 50,000 people who turned up as per my sources there. We had warned the company against such drives. There was a 1 km-long queue. Police had to be called. Applicants were asked to leave their application, and they would be called later. There are vacancies for 1,786 handyman and 16 utility agents. This shows the joblessness among the people,” Abram said.

The minimum qualifications for the posts were SSC/10th pass and a maximum age of 23. The salary was fixed at Rs 22,530 per month. The position was on a fixed-term contract basis of 3 years.

While the union said 50,000 applicants turned up, Rambabu Chintalacheruvu, CEO of AI Airport Services Limited said “about 15,000 people” came to submit the application form.

For those unversed, Air India Airport Services Ltd was formerly known as Air India Air Transport Services Limited.

A similar stampede-like situation was witnessed on July 9 in Gujarat when around 1,000 people turned up for walk-in interviews held by a firm for 40 vacancies at Ankleshwar.