BHUBANESWAR: The State government has decided to stop the recruitment of data entry operators (DEOs), and merge the DEOs, stenographers and personal assistants into a single cadre to be named as executive assistant cadre.
“The DEOs will be declared as a dying cadre after appointment of 232 junior data entry operators who have been selected by the Staff Selection Commission as per the requisition of the State government in 2015,” sources familiar with the development said.
The government feels that the relevance of the DEOs in the State Secretariat is lost after completion of digitisation and automation leading to OSWAS, an IT-based governance system. Since there is minimal data entry at the level of administrative departments, if required services of DEOs will be outsourced, the sources said.
“The Odisha Secretariat Stenographers and Personal Assistants (Method of Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules will be amended with integration/merger of DEO cadre with the proposed executive assistant and private secretary cadre at appropriate grades,” the sources maintained.
The Home department will work out the modalities and suggest for integration of these cadres into one in consultation with General Administration and Finance departments. Meanwhile, the Finance department has given its concurrence to the draft amendment of the Stenographer and PA Recruitment Rules.
This was discussed at a high-level meeting chaired by Additional Chief Secretary of Home Sanjeev Chopra here recently. After elaborate discussion and looking at the job charts of DEOs, the meeting decided to abolish the cadre. The government had abolished the typist cadre in 2012-13 as the post lost its relevance after computerisation of the office system.
It was then decided that the consequential vacancy that will arise at the base level will be filled up by DEOs. Accordingly, the government framed Odisha Secretariat Data Entry Operators (Method of Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 2008 for the purpose.