Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala has made great strides in e-governance over the last several years even as many other states in the country are in the early stages of making use of Information Technology for delivering government services to the public. In a move aimed at giving further push to this, over 500 IT experts will be recruited in place of surplus hands identified by the vigilance wing of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances.

The new recruits will replace 546 office attendants in the Secretariat, the seat of administration of the Kerala Government.

At present computer experts required for e-governance projects of the Secretariat are being deployed from outside. This is when over 500 personnel without any meaningful job are working in the Secretariat in the posts of attendants. Of the 836 posts of office attendants in the Secretariat only 290 have any meaningful jobs. Others are idling their time, the administrative reforms department had recently found.

The vacancies in the surplus posts will not be filled. A portion of posts that would become vacant will be earmarked for IT experts and the rest will be kept for secretariat assistant and section officer cadres. Though it was planed to abolish these posts in the future, now recruitments that meet the e-governance demands will be made.

The new cadre posts will benefit more than 1,000 computer experts who pass out from over 100 engineering colleges in the state ever year and are mostly jobless.

In the Secretariat there are 308 posts in categories ranging from Under Secretary to Principal Secretary. The posts of office attendants are more than thrice these number.