Computer science has always been a dream for M Ramesh who graduated from BITS Pilani-Hyderabad Campus. But he has just joined as a panchayat secretary in Andhra Pradesh.

“It was a tough decision. But in today’s scenario where jobs have become scarce, I had to opt for this in line with my family’s wishes,” Ramesh, who is now a Village Secretary in Palakoderu, West Godavari district told BusinessLine .

There are many other engineering graduates from various colleges who also joined these jobs. According to officials in the Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Department, Government of AP, about over 30 per cent of selected candidates in the mega village secretariat staff recruitment of 1.40 lakh posts have higher technical qualifications and opted for the job.

There are different categories in the recruitment including the much coveted Panchayat Secretary Grade-VI (Digital Assistant) which carries a pay scale of ₹14,600-44,870.

However, they are paid ₹15,000 consolidated pay for a probation of two years after which the posts will be confirmed with regular pay scales. While graduation in any discipline was the eligibility for the posts. Some other categories of jobs had plus-two qualification only.

Salary

According to S Krishna, who got posting in rural area of Kadiyam in East Godavari district, the low pay in entry level jobs in many IT companies also drove many technical graduates to take up village secretary post. “Many MNCs are paying around ₹15,000 with odd work hours. Relatively, this post is better as we tend to stay close to our native place as the posting is in the native district,’’ he said.

Many of them are also hoping to scale up to higher posts after joining government services by appearing for other competitive examinations.

Record

To strengthen rural administration and ecosystem, the Andhra Pradesh government has released the village secretariat ( Grama Sachivalayam ) notification for village secretary posts in different categories. The total number of vacancies to be filled is 1,41,576.

The entire process of recruitment to posting has been completed in about three months which is first of its kind in any State on such scale, claim government officials.

Rural tilt

The new office of village secretariat was launched on October 2, 2019 with chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy claiming that it was a ‘realisation’ of Gandhiji’s dream of Gram Swaraj . About 500 different kinds of services would be available at the doorstep in villages and any grievance lodged or petition from the people would be addressed within 72 hours. Village volunteers would work in coordination with the secretariat staff.

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