Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh government on Monday appointed over 1.26 lakh employees, claimed to be the first of its kind in the country in terms of numbers in a single recruitment drive, under a new governance initiative of Village and Ward Secretariats, being launched on October 2.This should be written in golden letters in the countrys history. Never before were these many permanent government jobs created in one go anywhere in the country and employees recruited in a record time of just two months, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy said.While over 21 lakh candidates applied for various posts in these Secretariats, that would deliver about 500 public services, a total of 19.50 lakh appeared for the written examinations from September 1 to 8.Of the 1,98,164 candidates qualified in these examinations, 1,26,728 have been given jobs, including 31,640 in urban areas.The Chief Minister initiated the process of handing over appointment letters to the qualified candidates at a function in Vijayawada on Monday.The Village and Ward Secretariats would become fully functional across the state from December first week, he announced on the occasion.Each Secretariat would have 10-12 employees related to departments like panchayat raj and rural development, revenue, medical and health, animal husbandry, power, agriculture and social welfare in rural areas and municipal services in urban areas.Besides, there would be a woman police and women and child welfare assistant in each Secretariat to take care of women protection and counselling.About 500 public services will be delivered through these Secretariats with the help of village and ward volunteers. We have already appointed over 2.8 lakh village and ward volunteers for this purpose, Jagan said.He stressed on ensuring corruption-free delivery of government services and exhorted the newly-recruited staffers to treat this not merely as a job but a service.He said a social audit would be conducted periodically to ensure transparency and accountability and bring in credibility to the system.The Chief Minister announced on the occasion that henceforth, recruitment examinations would be conducted every year from January 1 to 31 to fill up vacant government posts in different departments.In all, 11,158 Village Secretariats and 3,786 Ward Secretariats (in urban areas) are proposed to be opened across the state.Ministers Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy, Botcha Satyanarayana, V Srinivas, P Venkataramaiah, Kodali Sri Venkateswara Rao and others attended the event.