Early on the morning of March 3, Mahesh, a 34-year-old resident of Rourkela, in Odisha, reported at the district sports complex in the town of Sundergarh, to take a physical test for a government job. For the test, he would have to walk or run 25 km within four hours.
The test, conducted by the Odisha Subordinate Staff Selection Commission, was held jointly for the posts of forest guard, forester and livestock inspector. More than 8,000 aspirants had applied for 2,712 vacancies.
Though candidates were made to report at 6 am, they were put through extensive physical examinations and it was only at 11 am that Mahesh was called on to give the test. He recounted that he had been practising for it, but that he had not anticipated the intense heat of the late morning – temperatures rose to around 36 degrees Celsius that day.
“By 11, the sun was high up, and we had to walk or run in the burning heat,” said Mahesh, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym. “I finished my test in three-and-a-half hours, but my legs and hands went numb by the end of it.”
Mahesh learnt later that some others who appeared for the test met with tragic fates. On March 3, Byomkesh Naik from Keonjhar district died after appearing for the test, and on March 4, Pravin Panda from Sundergarh and Gyana Ranjan Jena from Jagatsingpur, also died after appearing for the test.
Pramila Naik, Byomkesh Naik’s mother, told Scroll that her son already had a clerical job, and had even passed an exam for the post of panchayat officer – but he had been preparing intently to compete for the forester post for several months because it paid better.
She alleged that in Keonjhar, when her son collapsed after completing the physical test, there was no water available nearby. Further, she said, he was rushed to the district hospital about 30 km away in an ambulance that did not have an oxygen tank. He died at the hospital.
Naik is survived by his wife and a two-year-old child. “There is nobody to look after them, we have not even received the compensation money,” Pramila said.
Despite the fact that when Mahesh gave his test, there were stations every few kilometres with water and oral rehydration solutions, he was unsurprised at the deaths, given the heat and candidates’ desperation for jobs. “The unemployment rate is so high that most people think they don’t have the option to give up,” he said. “If the authorities care about aspirants, they should conduct the test in the early mornings or the winter months.”
Scroll emailed the Odisha Subordinate Staff Selection Commission to seek its response to this and other allegations, as well as to questions about the broader lack of safety for job aspirants. This story will be updated if any responses are received.
A larger problem
In the aftermath of the deaths in Odisha, the Odisha Subordinate Staff Selection Commission directed officials to conduct physical tests early in the morning when temperatures are lower.
But to many, such measures came too late, particularly considering that the risks of such intense physical tests in extreme weather are well known. In 2024, for instance, 12 candidates in Jharkhand’s excise police constable recruitment exam, held in August and September, died after appearing for physical tests.
“It’s really unfortunate that such deaths are happening,” said Dr Randall Sequeira, a public health doctor in Odisha. “Physical exams like those for the police or forest guards push one’s endurance to the limits. It seems like people in charge of recruiting for these posts are quite unaware of how hot it is outside.”
Sequiera explained that summers commence earlier than they did some years ago, and that therefore, authorities have to take precautions to ensure that candidates take tests in tolerable conditions, and do not suffer under unsafe levels of heat.
Young job aspirants who apply for these jobs push themselves beyond limits during the tests because the problem of unemployment looms large over them – the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2023-’24 noted that the unemployment rate in Odisha that year was 11.1%.
Other states, too, see intense competition for government jobs. In 2024 in Uttar Pradesh, which has an unemployment rate of 9.1%, some 50 lakh candidates applied for 60,244 vacancies for constable posts in the state police.
Jharkhand, which neighbours Odisha, has a lower unemployment rate, of 3.6%, but the number of aspirants who apply for jobs indicates that the state also faces a dire situation – for the state excise police constable recruitment exam held in 2024, for instance, more than 3 lakh candidates applied for a mere 583 posts.
“In Jharkhand people wait for years to get through government exams and end up losing out on their youth in the process,” said Prakash Laguri a social worker from Chaibasa who has coached aspirants for government exams. “Unemployment figures were so high that youth have made it a habit to sit for all the exams they can, in the hope that they will get through one.”
He observed that the problem had grown more acute in recent years. “Usually if an aspirant sits for group A and B exams or for banking and railways exams, then they don’t sit for groups C and D or police and army exams,” he said, referring to the hierarchy in government service exams, according to which group A comprises high-ranking jobs, and group D low-ranking ones. He added, “But nowadays I see youth apply for all posts.”
Conditions in Jharkhand
Like in Odisha, in Jharkhand, too, candidates faced immensely stressful conditions for the state excise police constable recruitment exam.
Suresh, a security guard from Ranchi, recounted that on August 24, after travelling more than 170 km by train, he queued up at the Chiyanki airport ground in Palamu district at 11 pm the night before he was to appear for the test. Five of the 12 candidates who died had appeared for the test at Palamu: Amresh Kumar, Pradeep Kumar, Ajay Mahato, Arun Kumar and Deepak Pandu.
Like Suresh, thousands of other working-class aspirants had also formed queues at the ground during the night, hoping to get an early start.
Suresh, who requested to be identified by a pseudonym, alleged that the police officials overseeing the test did not let them sleep at night. “‘Have you all come here to become constables or to sleep?’ they told us,” Suresh recounted. “Besides, it also rained a little that night, the ground was mucky, so a lot of people chose to stand or squat.”
Although the test began at around 4.30 am, due to the sheer number of aspirants, it was 11 am by the time Suresh finally took it. “The sun was scorching by that time,” he said. “I had stayed up the whole night and hadn’t eaten anything since the previous evening. So, I was already under physical strain and then I had to run 10 km in under one hour.”
Even though Suresh had been practicing for two months, he was not prepared for the heat. “After 8 am, there was no respite from the sun,” he said. “I had practised in the mornings and evenings, but I wasn’t prepared to run in the afternoon.”
After finishing his run, Suresh collapsed on the ground for about half an hour. Although there was a makeshift tent for the aspirants, it was not large enough for the 6,000 present that day. “I was conscious, but I was unable to move for about half an hour,” Suresh said.
He recounted that his suffering was exacerbated by the fact that the authorities had not allowed candidates to carry water inside the venue. But some candidates had bypassed this rule, and hidden their water bottles to bring them in, then thrown them near the tent. “I crawled toward a water bottle that was thrown on the ground and drank from it,” Suresh said. “Only then did I feel a little better.” On the day he gave his test, he saw two men being taken away in ambulances.
Scroll emailed the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission, seeking its responses to criticisms of poor conditions at the centres, the alleged mistreatment of aspirants and the lack of adequate measures to safeguard their health. This story will be updated if any responses are received.
The Hazaribagh centre
Candidates at the Hazaribagh centre also recounted suffering mistreatment and having to endure intense heat. Of the 12 who died over the course of the tests, three aspirants appeared in Hazaribagh: Manoj Kumar, Suraj Verma and Pinkesh Birua.
“We were treated like cattle,” said Biren, an aspirant from Chaibasa who appeared in the Hazaribagh centre, and who also asked to be identified by a pseudonym. “When the crowd got out of hand, the police even beat us with laathis.”
He conceded that some candidates became unruly and jumped the queue, but said the police were indiscriminate with the laathi charge, and that they even hit those who were obeying instructions. “Some of them were beaten so badly on their legs that they couldn’t participate in the physical test,” he said.
Like Suresh, Biren, too, had a long wait. “It was too crowded, so I decided to step aside and give the test in peace,” he said. He began standing in the queue at 5.30 am, and was one of the last to give the test at the centre, at around 1.30 pm.
By then, temperatures had soared. Though Biren has been an athlete since his childhood, he found it difficult to run in the blistering heat. Once he had finished, he sat down on the ground, and it began to rain. “I was glad to cool down at first but then I soon started to shiver,” he said. Biren, too, took a few days to recover from the stress of the experience.
Families’ losses
On 12 March, after a cabinet meeting, the Jharkhand government announced the relaxation of requirements for candidates applying for jobs with the police and excise police departments. It stated that male candidates would be made to run 1.6 km within six minutes, while female candidates would be made to run the same distance within 10 minutes.
The measure is little consolation to families who lost loved ones.
Among them is the family of 31-year-old Arun Kumar from Palamu district, who on August 28, collapsed on the ground after finishing his test. He was taken to a hospital, where he regained consciousness and was given a plasma transfusion, but died soon after.
Varun Kumar, Arun Kumar’s elder brother, recounted that his sibling had “topped in school and college” and that the family had pinned great hopes on him. “My family spent all our savings on his education,” Varun told Scroll over the phone. “I worked as a labourer and even collected money from my community to educate him. He, too, was desperate for a job and had been practicing for months.”
Now, Varun is the sole earner in the family. “Both my parents are ill – my father has high blood pressure, and my mother is slowly going blind,” he said. “My daughter was born a few months ago and she too keeps falling ill.”
The Jharkhand state government announced that the families of the deceased aspirants would receive Rs 4 lakh each. Alongside this, the Bharatiya Janata Party also gave Rs 1 lakh to each family. “That money lasted us a while, but it’s no replacement for my brother,” Varun said. “If you come to our house, you will see it is falling apart. I wish we had all died with him.”
