Ranchi, Aug. 9: Goodbye pen and paper, welcome keyboard.

Manual registration at the employment exchange office will soon be a thing of the past. It is all set to tread the tech track that will enable job seekers to search and apply online for vacancies from October 1.

To reduce the hassle for job seekers who have to wait in long queues to record their names at the employment exchange, the state IT and labour departments have joined hands with National Informatics Centre (NIC), Delhi to develop a software — Common Application System for Employment Exchange (CASE) — that will be soon uploaded on the site.

Shahid Ahmed, the senior technical director of Jharkhand chapter of NIC, said that through this software, job-seekers could gather information about vacancies according to their career interests, skills and qualification, which was earlier not possible.

With this step, the number of registrations and appointments, which had drastically gone down over the past couple of years, is expected to bounce back. According to figures available with Ranchi employment exchange, in 2004, the number of registration was 16,582 while vacancies notified were 103. But only 23 appointments were made.

In 2005, the registration figure stands at 12,235 with 98 vacancies and only four appointments. While in 2006 and 2007, the number of vacancies were 214 and 267 while 66 and 5 job seekers respectively were appointed. In 2008 (till August), there have been five appointments against 217 notified vacancies.

“The figures are depressing but it is mainly due to the manual registration system. We are sure that the show will improve once we introduce the CASE software in the portal,” an official at the Ranchi employment exchange said.

As per the current system, job aspirants first have to fill application forms at the employment exchange offices.

After scrutiny, the officials send the names to various organisations and employers. If selected, a meeting or an interview is arranged between the employers and potential employees.

“As the process was manually done, it took a lot of time and potential candidates had to wait long. With the launch of the software and subsequent portal, job-seekers can find vacancies themselves without relying on the officials at the employment exchange branches. They will also get the opportunity to work in other districts in case their profiles do not matches with the particular job in their native place. This software has been launched in other states and is running successfully,” Ahmed said.

The launch of the portal will also pave the way for web interface for registration, booking, transfer of candidates from one exchange office to another, vocational guidance and career counselling for self-employment.