Making the announcement in the Legislative Assembly, Chief Minister Narayan Rane said now the work of recruitment of class III (grade C) staff in the State Government will be entrusted to a committee headed by the district collectors.

The State level board along with six regional boards for each revenue division (Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, Amravati, Aurangabad and Pune) were set up in 1988 mainly for the recruitment of class III staff in the State Government and local self bodies.

By and large, the decision of the alliance government has been welcomed by the heads of the regional boards. ``We were unable to meet the expectations of aspiring candidates,'' Vishwas Bhide, senior BJP leader and Chairman of the Konkan Board said.

Bhide pointed out that in the absence of autonomy, the boards were virtually non functional. ``Since July last year,we are unable to make any recruitment owing to code of conduct in force following elections to one or the other local self body in the Konkan region,'' Bhide pointed out.

Secondly, Bhide said, for conducting examinations or declaring results, the organisation had to fully depend on the collectorate. ``We were completely dependent on the district collectors and hence, there were practical difficulties in discharging the duties,'' he said.

Another senior official said, the reservation policy adversely affected the recruitment process. ``Since it was expected that the regional recruitment boards will recruit locals, in reality, it was difficult in view of the reservation policy. Once the posts are earmarked for a particular category, it was obligatory for the board to recruit from the same category. In the process, local residents, felt that they were ignored,'' the chairman added.

Elaborating his contention, he said, recently a regional board had advertised for seven posts of talathis, which alsoincluded reservation as per the Constitution. ``For seven posts, we received a record number of 70,000 applications. Naturally, 69,993 applications had to be rejected, which resulted in discontent among the aspiring candidates,'' he added.

One of the reasons for abrupt scrapping of the boards was large-scale corruption in these boards, an official said. ``There were specific complaints against a section of the boards, therefore the Chief Minister decided to scrap the boards and revert to earlier system of recruitment through the committees headed by the district collectors,'' he said.