Beware the call for a job at 'Sarkari Marathi call centre'

Sudhir Pedamkar, who alerted mid-day about this fraudulent scheme

Various schemes launched for public welfare by Prime Minister Narendra Modi seem to have brought ‘achche din' for some cheats. Some people are running a fake job scheme in the name of the government of India and are trying to dupe people into paying them for ‘training'.

The ‘appointment letter' bore the national emblem and the state government logo, and the papers even came with a picture of the PM

A mid-day reader received one such phone call and ‘appointment letter', after which he informed this newspaper. Worli resident Sudhir Pedamkar (38) was a happy man when he got a call offering him a job in a government office.

Sudhir Pedamkar, who alerted mid-day about this fraudulent scheme

A woman had called Pedamkar in the last week of January, informing him that he had been chosen for a job at the ‘Sarkari Marathi Call Centre' under the state health department's Navsanjivani Yojana.

Pedamkar said, "They asked few questions like who is president of India, what is the capital of Maharashtra and so on. I answered all of them and she told me that I had been selected for the job and would get Rs 24,500 as monthly salary. She said she would send an appointment letter within a week."

A fortnight later, the promised letter arrived bearing the picture of the PM, the national emblem and the logo of Maharashtra government. "It was a ten-page document with the appointment letter attached to it. The letter had a Goa address and had a phone number given for further inquiry.

When I called the number, one Payal Sharma asked me to transfer Rs 13,000 to a bank account for a seven-day training programme. That was when I smelt a rat," Pedamkar said. The ‘recruiters' sent a text message to Pedamkar on February 10 with the details of the account in which the money had to transferred.

The money was to be sent to one Dr Sunderlaal, an advocate who would purportedly train Pedamkar, after which he would be ready to be hired by a Mumbai call centre. The alert resident contacted this paper and narrated the whole story.

"I realised that this was a sham and wanted to ensure nobody else got fooled. Hence I chose to let everyone know about this scam running in the name of the government," he said.

Official speak
Dr Deepak Sawant, state health minister, denied there is any such scheme being operated by his government. "We are not running any such scheme (call centre) and I will ensure that the people who are operating this scam will be caught as early as possible and stern action will be taken against them," Dr Sawant told this paper.

Dr Satish Pawar, state director of health services, accepted that complaints about such fraudulent schemes had been pouring in. He said, "In the last six months, we have got more than 30 calls from citizens enquiring about such schemes.

We have told everyone to register a complaint against these people, since the state government is not running any such (job) scheme."