Jobs dime a dozen for unemployed

The ongoing poll exercise has created job opportunities, albeit temporarily, for several youths in Bihar, especially Patna. While political parties have hired tech-savvy youths to brush their image in the social media, transporters as well as those involved in the trade of hoardings, posters, stickers, flags and flexes are also laughing all the way to the bank.
Rajeev Singh, who sells flags at a stall on Beerchand Patel Path which houses state offices of most of the political parties, estimates over 2,000 youths are engaged directly or indirectly in election-related work. “Miscellaneous work like preparing flags and posters, placing them at right places, painting walls, flex printing etc will continue till the last phase of polling,” he said and added he pays Rs 250 per day to his two staff members for running the shop.
The flags sell for anything between Rs four (13x21inch) and Rs 150 (40x60inch) each. Gandhi caps are sold for Rs 400 to Rs 900 per hundred pieces, and scarf is sold for Rs 6 to Rs 30 per piece. “We have hired ten packers and handlers whom we pay Rs 200 to 300 per day based on their experience,” said Satyendra Narayan Singh of Shivam Enterprises on Beerchand Patel Path.
Local DG Media Group is managing the Facebook and Twitter handles of Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) and 20-odd individual netas. Group’s Amit Kumar along with a team of 20 boys manages the publicity of JAP patron Pappu Yadav and a few former ministers. They operate out of a building in Patna’s Pataliputra Colony, where they have workstations. They update their clients’ profiles and tweet for which, of course, they have prior approval of their clients.
Amit said his firm pays Rs 8,000 to Rs 18,000 per month each to the professionals who are trained in handling the social media. “Their pay depends on their experience,” he said. The group charges Rs 25,000 per month from every individual client for handling his/her Facebook and Twitter. A political party, however, has to pay Rs one lakh for handling Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as updating websites and giving ideas.
“Major political parties have hired established PR agencies on contract, but individual MLAs, wannabe politicians and small parties opt for local social media experts,” said Saket Kumar, a small-scale entrepreneur who looks after the social media platforms of few politicians.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad’s son-in-law Shailesh Sinha, a software engineer, oversees the operations at an office opened at Saguna Mor from where Lalu’s Facebook page and tweeter handles are updated. “Seven hired boys, some of them MBAs, are part of the crew at this office,” said RJD’s youth wing general secretary Lav Kush Sinha. The place is originally a cattle-shed, but it doubles up as the social media war room of the RJD chief.
Ashish Ranjan, who works for Delhi’s Centre for Policy Research, terms this phenomenon of temporary job creation during election as one of the positive aspects of our democracy. “That there are youths to take up such jobs underlines the gravity of the problem of unemployment though,” he told TOI.