Economy In Shambles, Jobless Engineers Turn Salesmen, Clerks In Andhra

[Sidhu...Sidhaarth Roy]

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24-year-old Vikram has a degree in Information Technlogy.[/size][/font][/color]

[b]Medak: [/b][color=#000000][font=Roboto, sans-serif][size=4]A television set plays the debate on India's economy in Parliament as Vikram attends to customers at a provisions store in Shankarpalli mandal of Medak district in Andhra Pradesh. Scornful of the deliberation far away in India's capital, he sees no hope of things changing for the better.[/size][/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font=Roboto, sans-serif][size=4]Vikram has a reason. The 24-year-old has an engineering degree in Information Technology, and yet is forced to work in the shop after a desperate two-year-long search for a job.[/size][/font][/color]
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[color=#000000][font=Roboto, sans-serif][size=4]With the economy in shambles, jobs are hard to come by in Andhra Pradesh. Just 15-20 per cent of the aspirants are landing up jobs in a state with the highest number of engineering colleges in the country. [/size][/font][/color]


[color=#000000][font=Roboto, sans-serif][size=4]For the remaining engineers, job means working as salesmen selling grocery and electronic goods, or working as government clerks or nursery school teachers; anything that comes by as long as you can earn a living.[/size][/font][/color]
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[color=#000000][font=Roboto, sans-serif][size=4]"Out of 130 students in our college, just 20 got into IT; that too call centre technical support. They're working for 6000-7000 rupees," says Vikram's former classmate Srinivas.[/size][/font][/color]
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[color=#000000][font=Roboto, sans-serif][size=4]Srinivas, relieved at being selected for a government job as stores in-charge, gives a revealing example, "The Medak ordnance factory got more than 80,000 applications - mostly from engineers - for 90 labour posts it advertised recently. The qualification was tenth pass." [/size][/font][/color]
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[color=#000000][font=Roboto, sans-serif][size=4]"What a mismatch. Can these people sweep and clean machines?" he asks. [/size][/font][/color]