The Kerala Cabinet on Wednesday decided to bring legislation to set up State Civil Service.
It approved report of a committee headed by the Chief Secretary recommending formation of Kerala Administrative Service covering 18 departments. Posts of officers above the lowest level of gazetted officers will be treated as equivalent to that of deputy collectors and included in the Kerala Administrative Service. (They will include under secretaries and those above them in the State service). While 50 per cent of the posts in the Service will be filled up this way, the balance will be filled through direct recruitment. The PSC will conduct civil service examinations for this purpose.
The departments proposed to be covered are Agriculture, Sales Tax, Civil Supplies, Cooperation, Industries, Labour, Revenue, Municipal Administration, Panchayat, Registration, Rural Development, Scheduled Castes Development, Scheduled Tribes Development, Social Justice, Survey and Land Records, Tourism, Treasuries and General Education.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy told the media after the Cabinet meeting that enlargement of the scope of the proposed Service to cover more departments would be considered favourably. The committee was formed in September last year to consider formation of a State civil service with a view to improve the administration.
The Cabinet also approved constitution of the State Innovation Council with 16 members besides the Chairman. It had named former Chief Secretary K. Jose Cyriac as Chairman earlier. Chief Secretary, Additional Chief Secretary (Planning), Additional Chief Secretary (Higher Education), Principal Secretary (Information Technology), Secretary (Science and Technology), Vice Chairman of Higher Education Council, Vice Chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry Kerala State Council V. K. Mathews, Member of State Planning Board G. Vijayaraghavan, Chief Executive Officer of MobME Wireless Sanjay Vijayakumar, Chairman of Coconut Development Board T. K. Jose, Director of Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology Radhakrishna Pillai, S. D. Shibulal (former chief executive officer of Infosys), P. P. Chandrachoodan, Thomas Joseph, Anil K. Gupta and C. V. Muraleedharan will be members.
