Process to recruit village volunteers on June 24

: The Andhra Pradesh government will spend Rs 1,200 crore per annum to employ about four lakh volunteers from villages to take the benefits of government service to the doorstep of beneficiaries in rural areas.

The process for recruiting the volunteers would begin on June 24 once a formal notification is issued and the selection process through personal interviews would be completed between July 11 and 25.

Induction and training for the selected volunteers would be conducted from August 5 to 10 and they would start functioning from August 15, coinciding with the country's independence day, a government order issued by Chief Secretary L V Subrahmanyam said Saturday.

The volunteers set-up would be akin to the Janmabhoomi Committees under the previous Chandrababu Naidu government, official sources said.

The Y S Jaganmohan Reddy government is now bringing in a new set-up in the name of 'Village Secretariat' in every village, under which the volunteers would function.

Each volunteer, who would cover 50 households in a village, would be paid a monthly honorarium of Rs 5,000.

Besides the normal rule of reservation, women would be considered for 50 per cent of the posts within each category, the order said.

After he was sworn in as Chief Minister on May 30, Jagan had announced that four lakh village volunteers would be recruited to ensure foolproof delivery of government services and schemes to eligible beneficiaries.

"The government is committed to revamp delivery systems in the state with an aim to improve living standards of the people through the concept of Navaratnalu, the core theme of governance," the order said.

To operationalise Navaratnalu, the government intends to deploy volunteers in rural areas for delivering government services at the doorstep of all eligible households irrespective of caste, creed, religion, gender and political affiliation, it said.

The objective of seeking village volunteers is to ensure timely and transparent service and to eliminate the corruption at all levels of administration.

Village volunteers would identify the problems being faced by anybody in their jurisdiction and bring them to the notice of gram panchayat concerned and get them resolved, the order said.