The beginning has been made in Pune division. The State has cleared a proposal for establishing computer training centres in all the five districts of the division.

Speaking to The Indian Express Divisional Commissioner Rajiv Agarwal said that the new computer training centres will be opened in addition to the existing programme of training the government employees.

The current programme is progressing slowly with only a handful of government employees having sought the training. This, despite the fact that the State is reimbursing Rs 5,000 as the course fee of the computer training. It has even offered an incentive of Rs 2,500.

With a grant of Rs 10 lakh the training centres will soon be established at all the district collectorates. ``We propose to setup a facility at the collectorates which will have at least ten personal computers,'' said Agarwal.

As against the current procedure where the employees visit the private institutes and take up courses, the computer centres in the collectorates will have the institutes providing the faculty support for staff training. In the current procedure, the employees are imparted training in computer fundamentals.

However, specialised job-specific training continues to be the hurdle. It is here that the computer centres will complement the ongoing programme and provide job-related training support.