Telangana Techies now line up for state jobs

Hyderabad: Software professionals working in major IT companies have made a beeline to write technical exams for assistant engineer/assistant executive engineer posts conducted by the Public Service Commission and the electricity department.

Some of them who cleared the job recruitment test left their jobs in the IT sector and took up posts in government departments.

Mr V. Uma Maheshwar Rao, placement officer at the College of Engin-eering, Osmania Univer-sity, said a good number of varsity students settled in IT jobs had taken the job recruitment tests conducted by the Telangana state government.

“Two women students, who were working at Infosys gave a serious shot at the exam.  Both of them cleared it and quit their software jobs. While one got posting in TSGenco in Khammam district, another was posted in the town planning department. These are just a few instances,” he said.

He attributed a slew of factors for the career switch by IT professionals. Work pressure for most of the time and odd working hours in some IT projects besides the big pay package being offered in government jobs at present are major factors, he felt

“The IT industry is witnessing stagnation as far as growth is concerned. A fresher is being offered pay in the Rs 2.75 lakh to Rs 3.5 lakh bracket. Com-pare with this Rs 60,000 to Rs 65,000 being given to a new Genco engineer and the reasons are obvious,” he said.

Mr Umamaheshwar Rao said that parents of software professionals were egging their children to take the government recruitment departments.

TSPSC chairman Prof. Ghanta Chakrapani  said the commission had conducted tests to recruit 2,000 engineers in irrigation, roads and buildings, rural water supply, public works and panchyat raj. This was in addition to the nearly 1,400 posts filled in the electricity department in TSTranso, TSGenco and in Discoms.

“Not only working IT professionals, even engineers working in other core companies attempted these tests in big numbers. Although we did not segregate data at the time of written tests, we came to know about their professions during the interview rounds,” Mr Chakrapani said.

Telangana aims at doubling infotech exports
IT and ITeS exports have rapidly increased in the state, and the government is expecting to double it in five years. TS stands second with a 20 per cent share in exports.

According to data with the Union ministry of commerce and industry and Assocham, the state exported IT and ITeS products worth Rs 57,258 crore in 2014-15 with 3.23 lakh employees. It increased to Rs 66,276 crore with an increase of 50,000 employees in 2015-16.

In order to increase the exports, the TS government announced its IT policy on April 5, and 28 firms signed MoUs. IT secretary Jayesh Ranjan told this newspaper that exports would get a fillip with e-commerce units like Amazon and Flipkart setting up shop in the state.

“The government is commited to developing the IT sector. For young entrepreneurs, we have established T-Hub and work on hits second phase has begun. We are expecting 200 per cent more exports in coming five years,” he said.

The government has doubled the budget compared with the previous year for the IT sector. Projects like expansion of IT corridor, establishing T-Hub second phase with gaming and animation zones and incentives for young entrepreneurs in T-Hub are being taken up on priority basis.