Several qualified engineers have started manning parking spaces in various parts of Chennai from Monday, along with parking attendants who have studied maximum up to 10th class.

All of the parking attendants in the city until then had been retired armed forces personnel who had only completed high school, The Hindu reported.

This year, more than 1,400 candidates have applied for jobs of parking attendants, out of which 70 per cent applicants are graduates, and 50 per cent are engineers.

This is a worrying indicator of the level of unemployment among engineers in Chennai. The Chennai Corporation is going to inaugurate the parking management system in more than 2,000 parking slots in areas such as Anna Nagar, Nungambakkam and Purasawalkam on March 2.

For instance, Anna Nagar Second Avenue will get 550 parking slots where motorists will have qualified engineers requesting them to download the app for parking management. As many as 18,000 persons have downloaded the app for parking management in the city. Currently, 222 parking slots have been offered for motorists, but the digital mode has not been promoted by the civic body so far.

‘Many of the applicants for the parking attendants posts have also completed their master’s in engineering. These people may be ideal candidates for promoting the digital mode of parking management. The actual qualification for parking attendants is an SSLC,’ said an official of the private vendor who is implementing the parking management system.

‘Each engineer will have to educate the motorists. It is purely a digital mode. The number of downloads of the app has to increase for successful implementation of the system,’ said another official.

As many as 1,000 persons have been hired by the vendor for the posts of parking attendants. They will start work on March 2. Many of the engineers who visited Ripon Buildings four days ago on February 27, said they were applying for the parking attendants jobs because they were unemployed.

‘I have completed civil engineering. I do not have a job because of the market condition in the real estate industry,’ said an applicant.

Also Read: Unemployment Rate At 7.5% In Sept-Dec 2019, Highest Among Educated Youth, Says CMIE Data