2.5L techies eye VRO posts

Arrangements have been made for the smooth conduct of the Village Revenue Officer (VRO) and Village Revenue Assistant (VRA) examination to be held on February 2. A total of 1,657 VRO and 4,305 VRA posts would be filled up through the exam, taking village as unit. More than 14.14 lakh candidates have applied for the two rural-oriented jobs, out of which over 13.13 lakh people taking VRO exam alone.

More than 1,550 candidates were found to have applied twice or thrice. Nearly 13 lakh candidates have already downloaded their hall tickets by Thursday evening which demonstrates the kind of seriousness and desperation of the unemployed youth to get the job.

The exam would be in two sessions: VRO-10 am to 12 noon and VRA- 3 pm to 5 pm on Sunday. The questions would be of multiple choice and there would be no negative marking.

Interestingly, more than 2.5 lakh candidates who applied for the VRO exam were from technical background- more precisely from engineering stream. This is also an indication of the job crunch for techies in the State as nearly 2 lakh B Tech and BE grads have been coming out with degrees annually. The number of engineering graduates who took the exam that was held for the same post in 2012 was around 1.75 lakh and it must have crossed 2.5 lakh now, according to official estimate.

Those who are having technical and science background have a natural advantage this time since 40 out of a total of 100 marks were allotted for questions on arithmetic ability (30) and logical skills (10). The syllabus of both the sections is not complex but candidates should go through the classes VI, VII, VIII syllabus to qualify this part of the exam.

Major part of the exam would be on general studies as 60 questions are to be framed on this topic which encompasses important events of 2012 regional, international and national. Social education, health, poverty and inflation are few topics which would be covered in the current affairs syllabus. Knowledge about important projects of the state, irrigation facilities, latest development in information technology, fuel resources etc. is to be studied.

“For VRO exam, society would be the syllabus. Government itself has stated that half of the questions- whether in science or humanities- would be on rural problems. It has specifically mentioned syllabus on rural environment and rural conditions. So, candidates must have thorough knowledge of village level issues- whether revenue, lands, schools, primary health centres, issuance of certificates etc,” Nutankanti Venkat, a Group I officer, who is also the Director of Sarathi IAS Study Circle, told The Hans India.

“The duties of VROs, VRA s amply speak about the nature of expected questions. If we know about them thoroughly, we can easily crack the exam,” Murali Krishna, a senior revenue officer of Visakhapatnam district said.

The VRO is the focal point person of the government in a village. His or her responsibilities are multi-directional starting from revenue collection, land records to providing information to police and railway officials to implementation of welfare works and other assigned tasks like voter and Aadhaar cards enumeration etc.

Stating that time management would be utmost crucial to crack the exam, Venkat said- “In two hours, 100 questions should be attempted. Candidates should concentrate first on the area in which they should be familiar. For example, science and engineering background students can first attempt questions on arithmetic and logical reasoning and then shift to general studies,” Venkat suggested.

Though the APPSC has deferred many competitive examinations due to the ongoing social turbulence, VRO and VRA test is expected to pave the way for the conduct of some big tests like DSC.