KOCHI: The seniority list of office attendant (last grade peon) in the economics and statistics department of the state government reveals that a lot of highly-qualified candidates, like those having MPhil, BEd, MSW and even MBA, have sought employment in the department as the last grade staff.
Interestingly, the director-general of the economics and statistics department, head of the department, requires the qualification of MA economic/MSc Statistics/MSc Mathematics while the newly-recruited office attendants have equal or better qualifications.
There have been demands from the staff themselves that a person from the IAS cadre or Indian Statistical Service (ISS) be appointed the director-general while the government is yet to respond to it.
Officials say persons with higher qualification may have sought employment in the department with the hope of getting a promotion to senior cadre as the department allows such promotions unlike in several other state government departments.
The order dated June 22 regarding the final seniority list of personnel in the cadre of office attendant (peon), containing names of 91 persons, reveals that there are six persons who have failed SSLC in the list while there are 33 having various degrees.
A total of 13 persons have post-graduate qualifications, including MSc Polymer Chemistry and MA Analytical Economics.
One person holds the qualifications of MSc, BEd and MPhil while another having BA also has MSW.
A total of 16 persons have BEd while a few of them have qualified SET also. One girl who joined the cadre in 2014 has BCom with MBA while another girl holds Diploma in Civil Engineering. Two persons have passed PGDCA.
