Engineering graduates duped of Rs. 10L for fake ONGC jobs
A new racket has come to light, this time involving the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. The Delhi Police started probing the multilevel job racket after ONGC informed them that several engineering graduates from across India had arrived at its Delhi office with fake appointment letters. In return for a guaranteed ONGC job, the aspirants had been scammed of Rs. 10 lakh each.
The racket was first discovered in March
The incident came to light recently, as ONGC informed the police after finishing an internal probe. On 7th March, 2018, two aspirants from Hyderabad had come to ONGC's Delhi office with fake appointment letters for the post of graduate engineer trainees at ONGC's Eastern Offshore Asset in Andhra Pradesh. The aspirants were turned down, but later ONGC's vigilance department contacted them for details.
Fake interviews were reportedly conducted in ONGC's Krishi Bhavan
ONGC learnt that the two candidates had been assured the jobs by a job consultancy firm based out of Hyderabad. The jobs were promised under the ministry quota and the candidates were asked to pay Rs. 10 lakh each. Interviews for the two candidates plus six others from Hyderabad were also conducted at the Recruitment Cell, ONGC, Krishi Bhavan on August 24.
A candidate explains how he was duped
A candidate explained that they had sent their documents to the job consultancy's agents, and had then received an email from the 'ONGC HR department' from the email id 'hrd.ministry@ongc.co.in'. Their interviews were confirmed some days later. A few days after the interview, he was informed that they he been selected with a pay grade of Rs. 24,000-50,500 with a 3% annual increment.
An inside job is a significant possibility
The ONGC's vigilance department concluded that an inside job was a possibility considering that the fake letters closely resembled official ones, and that the email id had originated from the ONGC domain. The Delhi Police's preliminary investigations revealed that the job consultancy firm in Hyderabad had shut down a while back, and that the phone numbers of the scamsters aren't functional anymore.
