Focus looking for 'low-cost' engineers

Focus Energy is offering lower salaries to young engineers in its latest recruitment drive but still demanding they sign a bond to ensure they stay with the company for three years or pay a Rs2 lakhs ($2800) penalty.

In an email sent on November 7 to universities, Focus says it is offering a Rs15,000 ($210) monthly stipend - less than the Rs20,000 ($280) monthly stipend it offered in a similar drive in March this year (2019). Focus will also provide lodging and boarding facilities to the selected candidates.

"The company will also provide an increment of Rs5000 ($70) every year for the three-year bond period," adds a source tells us. In return Focus is asking young engineers to endure the isolation and searing heat of its RJ-ON/6 block in the Rajasthan desert.

A young PDPU engineer tells us candidates with good performance and track records should be offered a better package. "But the monthly stipend of Rs15,000 is below average," he tells us.

"Not many fresh engineers will be willing to go to hostile conditions in Rajasthan for this money." Focus already conducted a first round of interviews in Gurgaon on November 9.