Warning: Visitors to the office of the West Bengal state lottery department may find themselves temporarily hired. This is because the state-controlled body has been hard put to find judges for the numerous lottery draws it holds. To be sure, this has been a perennial problem, as a result of which a handful of people were repeatedly being called in as judges.
But perhaps as a fallout of the Saradha scam, the state government recently objected to this practice, so the shortage has become acute. Since the rules do not allow anyone associated with the department to judge the draws, the search has descended into commandeering visitors to do the honours - free of charge of course, barring a box of sweets for their pains.
