Revenue Department recruits 1,000 VAOs in fool-proof method

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah fills 1,000 village administrative officer posts transparently, without corruption, ensuring no vacancies remain.

As many as 1,000 posts of village administrative officer (erstwhile village accountant) have been filled in a transparent and fool-proof way by the Revenue Department without a single allegation of corruption or malpractice, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Tuesday.

All the selected candidates were given employment orders by him at a programme held at the Vidhana Soudha to mark the release of a book on the achievements of the Revenue Department in the last two years.

Expressing happiness over filling the posts in a transparent and fool-proof manner, Mr. Siddaramaiah sought to compare this with the recruitment of over one lakh teachers by the then Primary and Secondary Education Minister Govinde Gowda in 1994-95.

Pointing out that the State had a total of 9,834 VAO posts, the Chief Minister said while 8,003 VAOs were already working, another 1,000 would join them now. The government would ensure that none of these posts remains vacant, he said.

Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the process was so transparent and fool-proof that nobody, including himself, could tamper with it even at the highest level.

Pointing out that earlier such recruitments were being held at the district level, he said, the department had taken up a State-level recruitment initiative through the Karnataka Examinations Authority to fill such a record number of posts. “As many as 6,33,916 members had applied for 1,000 posts, resulting in a tough competition that pegged the selection to a mere 0.0016% of candidates,” he said.

Meanwhile, laptops were provided to 4,000 VAOs on the occasion as part of the government’s initiative to take digitalisation of the functioning of the Revenue Department to the village level. Pointing out that presently, the VAOs were spending much of their time commuting to the taluk offices to either collect or deliver tapals(official letters), he said such an archaic practice had delayed the process of disposal of petitions submitted by people.