It enabling KPSC - Computerisation of Recruitment and Assesment
Kerala Public Service Commission
India

The Problem

I being the Head of the organization which currently employs Mr Sabarish Karunakaran, nominates him for the award just because of the effort this youngster has put in for harnessing the the power of internet and ICT in delivering efficient services to end-users at Kerala Public Service Commission where he was working earlier and has recived 9th National e-governance award. The initiatives to improve accountability and transparency to the previously corruption tainted recruitment process by application of ICT has received appreciation from Transparency International.
The nominee worked at Kerala Public Service Commission (KPSC). The nominee was in charge of computerization and he worked there in the Capacity of Systems Manager. He was instrumental in developing the IT strategy and managed the IT infrastructure and manpower to deliver results. Starting from a pilot scale project, the after the processes were matured, the same was replicated in 16 other offices spread across the state and there

after interlinking the offices through a network. The network helped in collation of information and helped in pooling the

information at a single point. The information thus aggregated were showcased through a web portal www.keralapsc.org which

provided information throughout. The project involved the computerization of the recruitment process; internetworking of its

offices and leveraging the ICT technologies deliver efficient services to its users mainly en-employed youth.
Once the IT infrastructure was in place Millions of Applications that has piled up due to manual processing could be disposed

of by cutting down the processing time by making use of Optical Mark Reader (OMR) technology and electronic data processing.

Based on the administrative policy decision of the Commission headed by the Chairman, many conventional written tests were

converted to objective type tests and made use of OMR readable answer sheets, which could be evaluated in a short period of

time was introduced which significantly improved the pace of evaluation of answer scripts. The stationery associated with the

exams was reduced considerably.
Unemployed technically qualified job aspirant youth of the state in general has benefited from this endeavor. They had to

patiently wait for long period to get the admit card for taking the examination for measuring their skill for the job and for

the results to be out another year or so. Now the scene has changed a lot by applying ICT efficiently the results could be

brought out in a matter of month’s rater than years. In general all the unemployed youths and their family members have in

Kerala have benefited from this project.
The Government has benefited in terms of revenue earned by way of sales proceeds of the application forms. Cost of

transporting men and material has been reduced considerably. By introduction of single sheet optical mark readable answer

sheets enabled to cut down the quantum of paper and stationery, thereby reducing the cost and help save many trees.

The nominated person has played a key role in acting as a technical facilitator in successful implementation of the project.

He has put in inestimable efforts for the successful implementation of the project by balancing the policy decisions and

overcoming the hurdles. The role he played was very crucial to the project success, as he has to liaise with the officials

and the external consultants, and sticking on to time lines and budgets.

I strongly recommend him for this award, as he deserves some regognition. I wish him good luck
for getting this award.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Kerala Public Service Commission (KPSC) is the primary governmental agency that solely handles all the human resource related

requirements of all the state government and public sector undertakings inside the Kerala State. On an average 10 million applications are scrutinized and over 2000 competitive exams are conducted annually for selecting the right candidate for the right job keeping into mind the reservation rules. It is headquartered at Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram and is organized into 14 district offices as well as 3 regional offices. The Head office/Regional Offices handles mostly the statewide selection where
candidates from all districts appear to a common test. The District Office takes care of the local district wise selections.

The project involved the computerization of the recruitment process; internetworking of its offices and leveraging the ICT technologies deliver efficient services to its users. The offices geographically distributed throughout the Districts of the

State were linked using a WAN to facilitate information exchange. This helped to distribute the application processing work

attached to one office to be processed fully or partially at any of the offices thereby ensuring the optimum utilization of human and machine resources in achieving the results. The internetworking of the offices helped a lot in decentralization of the decision making process, more information was made available for the officers working in those offices as a result they could make decisions instantly and could deliver any service which were previously offered at the head office locally. E.g. issuing duplicate copies of Admission tickets to candidates appearing for a particular exam from district offices even for

statewide selections. With the IT infrastructure in place the Number of Applications was minimized, existing process were either re-engineered or refined. A New Application form was introduced in Optical Mark Reader (OMR) recognizable format and OMR scanners were introduced for scanning in the application details minimizing the data entry process and errors, cuting
short previous steps like sorting and categorizing the application and even conditional rejection, relating to admissibility of the application, which were handled by the computer program. Relevant reports could be generated and the candidates were given examination centers nearer to their hometown, facilitating lesser travel. It is first time in the 50-year history of KPSC that it could bring out the result of a very big selection LD-clerk, various government departments a selection
involving (16 Lakhs Candidates) within a span of one year. Now the selection is made annual, previously it took 5 years to bring out the result. Now the process has been replicated twice. The Application pendancy was brought down to a manageable

level and could process 2 crores of application and was able to finalize selection procedures for 550 posts.

The systems study revealed that there was significant overlap and redundancy with multiple departments performing same tasks,

like preparation of status report on the pending applications by more than one section, consolidation of reports from district offices etc, with the Use of new IT infrastructure Pending reports and may other reports can be obtained using a

mouse click, thereby eliminating redundancy and enhancing the efficiency. The Staff identified at the district office as IT officers were given authority to take decisions locally which resulted in efficient decision making eliminating unnecessary tiers in

the hierarchy of decision making.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
Start of Project Nov-2000
Project Roll Out July 2001
Web portal creation 2002 August
Publication of results of an exam with over 16 Lakh Applicants within a years time 2003
Publication of results of an exam with over 16 Lakh Applicants within a years time repeated on 2004

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
KPSC is the primary governmental agency that solely handles all the human resource related
requirements of all the state government and public sector undertakings inside the Kerala
State. On an average 10 million applications are scrutinized and over 2000 competitive
exams are conducted annually for selecting the right candidate for the right job keeping
into mind the reservation rules. It also provides advice to the government issues relating to
promotion, punishment of the state government employees. It is headquartered at Pattom,
Thiruvananthapuram and is organized into 14 district offices as well as 3 regional offices. The
Head office/Regional Offices handles mostly the statewide selection where candidates from
all districts appear to a common test. The District Office takes care of the local district wise
selections.
The vision of the project is to improve further the internal efficiency of the organization
through the use of Information Technology.
KPSC Employees, members of the General Public and Other Governmental Departments
were identified as the key stakeholders involved in this project and the entire development
and deployment of the project was done in consensus with the Technical committee
involving representatives from all stakeholders to ensure successful implementation

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Project Objectives
• To improve the effiency of the Recruitment process at KPSC, which was plauged by delays and bottlenecks while processing

job seekers application manually
• Extending services of KPSC to prospective job hunters of Kerala to their doorstep/desktops
• To provide a friendly, affordable, speedier and efficient interface between the KPSC and the public through development of

a web portal.
• To ensure greater transparency, efficiency, objectivity, accountability and speed by providing increased accessibility and

efficient services to the public without compromising security and maintaining Confidentiality.
• To provide cost effective service and at the same time improving the quality of service on a 24/7 basis.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The key to the success of this project is the participatory approach followed at all stages of implementation, involving the stakeholders. A web portal was designed keeping in view the fact that its an extension of KPSC’s office, and not just a compilation of press releases, and was packed with the information, resources, and assistance that people turned to our office to find. The offices geographically distributed throughout the Districts of the State were linked using a WAN to facilitate information exchange. This helped to distribute the application processing work attached to one office to be processed fully or partially at any of the offices thereby ensuring the optimum utilization of human and machine resources in achieving the results. The

internetworking of the offices helped a lot in decentralization of the decision making process, more information was made available for the officers working in those offices as a result they could make decisions instantly and could deliver any service which were previously offered at the head office locally. With the IT infrastructure in

place the Pendancy of Applications were minimized, existing process were either re-engineered or refined.

Human Resource Strategy
The basic factor in capacity and skill building was the training and education of various individuals in various levels of KPSC depts. In the IT field. All the information that was flowing in had to be sifted thru and understood at a basic level.

The Implementation Team recognized the crucial role played by Human Resources in successfully using the system and need for the enhancement of the skill sets of human assets

at KPSC. Different levels of training were given to opinion leaders, who would champion the cause of use of IT for the efficient functioning and processing data for leveraging optimal results from the investment by teaching their peers in handling ICT. The typists were trained to take up roles as data entry operators, enquiry handlers etc.

The people most knowledgeable about what currently works, and what needs to be changed, are those who are doing the job. So

for implementing a successful change to IT related process, we had to rely on their workforce for the detailed design and

implementation of new organizational arrangements and service programs. In any situation involving the application of

knowledge, the most valuable working wisdom available is that of “knowing what not to do or even to try”. This was effected

by consulting the details of implementation with the staff who have experience in doing things manually at KPSC. The newly

trained manpower was given entirely new set of rules and an entirely flat hierarchy, they were taught what to do and what not to do.
Champions, opinion leaders who has illustrated good performance during the initial phase of implementations were identified and rewarded by giving them up lead roles and assigned the task of sharing their experience with their peers. They in turn

interacted with other staff members and thus knowledge sharing was effected. Good practices were given highlight and the lessons learned were share among the staff members. These in turn resulted in informal brainstorming sessions and could

synthesize new ideas and use patterns and efficient usage of resources. With all the information being transparent, knowledge
sharing was achieved at the highest level.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Quick and transparent processing of Application
Web based information and enquiry processing
Public satisfaction over the transparency and speed are demonstrated through feedback forms, in different symposia etc. The

system is generating a good public response all over the State; the average hit to this portal is 2.5 million per month
Complete computerization of the existing Application processing process at KPSC helped in reducing the time lag in bringing

out ranked lists considerably
Minimizing the number of pending applications
Scanning of Applications and a secure archival technique with backup facility helped minimize application loss.

The rating for the web portal is very high and he have received many feed backs especially from applicants who are working

outside India that they help and information is just a click away rather than ISTD calls or miles away. This is evident from

the hit the web portal receives every month average hit is about 2.5 million per month

Computerization of the recruitment procedure could save about 40 to 100 lakhs of Rupees per annum to the Government. This was

effected by reducing the stationery from many pages required for writing a written exam to a single OMR sheet when adopted

objective type tests.
Making the answer sheet evaluation through computer we could eliminate valuation fee proceeds to evaluators. Also the Postage

Parcel charges associated with each examiner could also be eliminated, The time required and effort required for evaluation

and making mark list was minimized by introducing high speed printers for printing mark lists.
The Sales Proceeds of the Application forms fetched a sum of 4 Crores for the last 2 years the revenue generated is

sufficient to sustain the project
Reduced the travel associated with writing an exam thereby reducing the cost involved intravel
Reduced number of times travel was needed by the applicant for obtaining information /records.
information about the relevant circulars, rules and regulations and the

procedures associated with the transactions in the form of FAQs and other informative sections in the web portal. Advance

timetable of the schedule of exams, syllabi etc are also provided. A candidate can get status information of the application one has filed online. The portal also provided them with a facility to know the marks secured by each candidate for an examination. Previously if one has to get this kind of information they have to que up in front of KPSC district/head offices browsing over multi-volume files/registers and in some cases the applicant has to travel from one end of the State to the

other end for obtaining information/services. Another key information is to know up to which rank in the ranked list

candidates have obtained the job on a given date, now it’s listed in the advice for appointment link of the portal.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Savings to the tune of millions of Rupees could be made by reducing the stationery from many pages required for writing a

essay type exam to a single Optical Mark machine readable sheet when objective type tests was introduced.

By Designing a New OMR machine readable Aplication Form and dispensing the old conventional non standardised format,

decreased the steps involved in the processing cycle and the new form was charged 10 Rupees. The Sales Proceeds of the

Application forms fetched a sum of 5 Crores for the last 4 years. The revenue generated is sufficient to sustain the

project.

It is an ideal model to be replicated all across India

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The biggest challenge faced by the Leader is the ‘people' problem – that is, in getting the staff’s buy-in, support and

commitment and in successfully linking the process to a cohesive change management Programme involving its three main tenets

namely transition management, communication management and benefits realization. The program implementation was successful

because of the ability of the leader to sustain change and to measure success in the context of a change in mindset/culture

and making the staff work and making them feel that they are a part of the system.

Though there was some resistance from the existing staff in the early days of the implementation, as they perceived that the

computerization is a threat to their job security, token strike and non co-operation moves were there. This was overcome by

educating the opinion leaders of the benefits of the ICT and also assured that there will not be a lay offs or retrenchment,

instead the existing semi skilled workers will be transformed into knowledge workers by providing appropriate training.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Kerala Public Service Commission
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Sabarish Karunakaran
Title:   Systems Manager  
Telephone/ Fax:   91 9447811556
Institution's / Project's Website:  
E-mail:   sabarish_k@yahoo.com  
Address:   “Amoolya”, CRA-181, Chadiyara Lane, Poojappura
Postal Code:   695012
City:   Trivandrum
State/Province:   Kerala
Country:   India

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