A suspected Amravati agriculture recruitment fraud has prompted the Agriculture Department to file a complaint with Gadge Nagar police after a fake recruitment notice appeared on the letterhead of the divisional agriculture joint director’s office. The department said the notice could be used to collect money from unemployed applicants and that the case has been placed under investigation.
The forged notice claimed that vacant Class III clerical posts would be filled through direct recruitment. It stated that selected candidates would be appointed at the office of the District Superintendent Agriculture Officer in Amravati. The notice also gave a deadline of 10 November for applicants to submit forms physically at the office.
The alleged recruitment process was described as offline rather than online. Applicants were reportedly instructed to contact Virendra Bhoyar, who had recently retired from the post of draftsman. The notice also carried the signature of Subhash Nagare, identified as the then divisional joint director of agriculture and a retired official.
The use of the department’s letterhead and the presence of an official-looking signature could make the notice appear genuine to job seekers. The Agriculture Department said this created a risk that candidates could be persuaded to make payments in the belief that they were applying for government employment.
Ganesh Ghorpade, the divisional joint director of agriculture in Amravati, said the department had approached the police because financial transactions could take place under the cover of the forged letterhead. He said the matter would be investigated and that action would be taken against those responsible. Police have kept the case under inquiry, according to the report.
The incident follows an earlier case involving alleged bogus recruitment in the Agriculture Department under the name of ‘Krushi Mitra’. The latest notice has therefore raised concerns about the misuse of government identities and recruitment-related information to target people seeking public-sector jobs.
The reported notice is not an official recruitment notification, according to the department’s complaint. The material supplied in the report does not establish whether any candidate paid money or submitted an application before the department intervened. The police inquiry is expected to determine who created and circulated the letter, whether applicants were contacted, and whether any financial transactions took place.
