Hyderabad: Close to 600 applicants of District Selection Commission (DSC) 2008, who had been waiting for jobs due to them for the last 16 years, organised a protest outside the Jyotiba Phule Praja Bhavan on Tuesday, urging Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy to give them jobs.
In a recent directive, the Telangana High Court asked both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments to furnish the merit list of DSC-2008 exams to fill the existing vacancies in secondary grade teachers’ posts at the earliest.
Aruna Malle, one of the aspirants from Nalgonda, speaking to Deccan Chronicle, said that thousands of candidates have been waiting for more than a decade and they came in large numbers hoping the new government would keep its promise.
Uma Maheshwar, president of the distressed group of candidates, said that the recent High Court order brought them hope, "but it needs immediate action or there's no use of the courts saying anything." He added that people's hopes are all now pinned on the Congress government whose primary poll promises were job placement initiatives.
The DSC 2008 saga dates back to the state government's announcement of 35,000 posts in December 2008. Subsequently, disputes arose regarding the allocation of posts among candidates with different educational backgrounds. Despite court rulings favouring the candidates, bureaucratic hurdles persisted, leaving many aspirants disillusioned.
Another aspirant, Venkateshwar Rao from Sangareddy district, said, "We've exhausted all avenues — protests, legal battles, and appeals to successive governments. It's disheartening to see our dreams shattered due to administrative apathy."
Amid the protest, while the hundreds reached out to Praja Vani nodal officer D. Divya, another five-member delegation reached the Secretariat to present their issues to education commissioner A. Sri Devasena.
It was only after education principal Secretary Burra Venkatesham met the protestors and assured them of the government's action to comply with the court order that the protestors relented. The protestors, relieved by the assurance, temporarily ended their protests, awaiting further updates on the government's response.
Sangameshwar R., another protestor, added, "We will wait for another three to four days to see if there's any information on the same. If there's not much movement in that direction, we will be forced to come up with another action plan. For now, we have ended our protests only temporarily," he told Deccan Chronicle.
