The Village Secretariats launched with a lot of fanfare on Wednesday, coinciding with the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, was hailed as a revolutionary step in Andhra Pradesh for taking the administration to the door steps of the common man.

The appointment of over 1.20 lakh employees were as village secretaries in a single recruitment drive was also an unprecedented move.

However, there were reports in a section of media that the appointment has disappointed several village secretaries, instead of making them happy.

Reason: there is a clause in the appointment letter that the new recruits should serve a probationary period of two years and compulsorily continue in the job for a period of three years.

The order said if the village secretaries, for any reason, leave the job midway, they should return their salaries for the period they had worked along with the training expenditure to the government.

According to this media report, this particular condition of three-year compulsory job will prevent the village secretaries from taking up any other better job offer they get during this three-year period.

“Since chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy himself has announced that there will be a series of recruitment drives to fill up the government jobs, this new rule will ruin the chances of village secretaries in getting better jobs,” the report said.

So far, there is no complaint from village secretaries about this clause. In any case, it is better the government gives a clarification on this three-year compulsory rule for the village secretaries.