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Claim
An organisation, National Rural Development and Recreation Mission (NRDRM), purportedly established under the Ministry of Rural Development, runs ads on a mass recruitment drive in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Fact
No such organisation, clarifies ministry official; ads looking to extract money from unsuspecting job applicants.
An advertisement was recently published in the February 4 Greater Hyderabad edition of leading Telugu daily, Eenadu, claiming to be from the “National Rural Development and Recreation Mission (NRDRM)”, under the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India. The advertisement invites online applications to 6,881 job vacancies under the mission for the state of Telangana.
The vacancies are purportedly for the positions of district project officer, account officer, technical assistant, data manager, computer operator, among others, even as the job posting seeks applications to be submitted on two websites: www.nrdrm.com or www.nrdrmvacancy.com, from February 5 to February 25, along with further instructions on payment of fees. The ad for the alleged recruitment drive for 13,762 (6881+6881) vacancies across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana was also in multiple websites, seen here, here and here.
Fact Check
Newschecker first noticed that both the websites flout the official guidelines for Indian government websites by not using the gov.in or nic.in domain, exclusively allotted and restricted to government websites, which are used to clearly identify them as government entities.
We did not find any website for the NRDRM using the gov.in or nic.in domain, nor did we find any credible news reports from major outlets about such a mission, further raising our doubts.
Newschecker ran both the nrdrm.com and nrdrmvacancy.com websites past Scam Detector, a major fraud prevention resource, which gave them both very low trust scores — 7.5/100 and 5.7/100 respectively — and deemed them “Suspicious. Young. Untrustworthy”.
“The algorithm detected high-risk activity related to phishing, spamming, and other factors noted in the Suspicious. Young. Untrustworthy tags above. Long story short, we recommend staying away from this website,” read the tool’s reviews of both websites.
We then reached out to Akhilesh Jha, head, Information, Education and Communication division (IEC), Ministry of Rural Development, who debunked the ad, saying, “There is no such organisation called the NRDRM under the ministry. We have got in contact with the Telangana government to issue an advisory against the ads”.
Not The First Fake Organisation Using The Ministry’s Name
The Ministry Of Rural Development had on July 15, 2022, issued a press statement, calling out fraudulent claims by a similarly named organisation (NRDM, for National Rural Development Mission) purportedly carrying out recruitment in the name of the ministry.
“The National Rural Development Mission-NRDM (nrdm.in), claiming to have its office at National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), NDCC-II, 7th Floor, Jai Singh Road New Delhi – 110001, and alternate operational address as 12, Lodhi Road, 110003 and contact number 8375999665, does not work under the purview of Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Government of India, as claimed,” read the statement, warning that any recruitment activities undertaken by NRDM perpetrated purportedly in the name of this ministry, and/or its officials may be considered fraudulent and do not have any endorsement.
“The MoRD does not charge any fee at any stage of its recruitment process or other fee, or request information on applicants bank accounts,” the ministry further clarified in the statement, which confirms that the “NRDRM” ads followed the same template to scam jobseekers.
We also came across news reports on similar job scams in the name of the rural development ministry, seen here and here.
UPDATE ON 07/02/2025: The Ministry of Rural Development on February 7, 2025, issued a scam alert advisory, debunking the fake organisation and the ads, on its official X, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube accounts.
“Scam Alert: Advertisement of thousands of government jobs under National Rural Development and Recreation Mission (NRDRM). No such advertisement has been issued by the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India. No government organization named NRDRM exists. Don’t fall prey to fake job scams, stay alert and make others aware too,” read the X post in Hindi.
Also Read: Viral ‘Report’ On Singer Shreya Ghoshal Endorsing An Investment Platform Is Fake
Conclusion
Fake organisation, using the name of the rural development ministry, carrying out a bogus recruitment process by running ads in newspapers and websites.
Result: False
Source
Conversation with Akhilesh Jha, head, Information, Education and Communication division (IEC), Ministry of Rural Development
Scam Detector tool
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