BADIN, March 7: The Sindh education department had earned around Rs27 million as job application form charges and Habib Bank Rs3 million form handling charges only in the defunct Hyderabad division, said bank sources.

Education department authorities through advertisements in newspapers had invited applications for posts of teachers. An application form was sold for Rs100 and it was made mandatory for candidates, including women, to affix colour photographs to forms. The bank received Rs10 per form.

As many as 13,150 job application forms were sold out through three Badin HBL branches against 550 vacant posts of teachers in the district. The education department earned Rs1.183 million and the HBL Rs131,500 from candidates of the Badin district.

When contacted, Badin HBL manager Waheed Aslam said the branch had sold 8,000 application forms. He said 90 per cent applications had been submitted at the bank by candidates.

Answering a question, he said the bank earned Rs80,000 as application form handing charges. Tando Ghulam Ali HBL manager Syed Sabir Hussain Shah said his bank had received 4,500 application forms from the education department, of which 3,600 had been sold.

Talhar HBL manager Abdul Majeed said the bank had sold 1,500 forms. A candidate, Ghulam Mustafa, said he had purchased three forms for applying for three different posts.

He complained that the education department had fixed one date for interviews for all posts. Riaz Ahmad and others regretted that the government paid TA/DA to candidates in the past for interviews held out of their towns but now no such allowance was being to job seekers.

The candidates demanded that the president, prime minister, Sindh minister, governor and other authorities should order the refund of application fees to those who could not be appointed.

Another candidate, Fatima, told this correspondent that the condition to affix photographs for women had discouraged many Parda-observing women from applying for the job.

She said honourable courts could help qualified women candidates in seeking the job by waiving off the condition of affixing photographs to application forms as had been done in the case of applying for Computerized National Identity Cards.