The Gujarat government, which had vowed to make its intelligence gathering robust in the aftermath of the Ahmedabad serial blasts last July, will now hire 44 intelligence officers on a five-year contract at a pay of Rs 4,500 each per month.

But their selection may be no mean task. Despite the paltry pay offered with no guarantee of regular employment after five years, more than 48,000 graduates have applied for the 44 posts (including 22 reserved for SCs). A total of 47,410 have been initially shortlisted for the task.

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Following a sting operation led by Chief District Health Officer (CDHO) Vaidya, the health department on Tuesday trapped Dr Kaushik Shah, a radiologist from Ahmedabad, and his two staffers under the Pre-Conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PNDT) Act.

Dr Shah is the fourth in the line with DN Prajapati in Palanpur, Harshad Thakkar in Ahmedabad and Bharat Bhope in Rajkot having been booked earlier under the Act.

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In view of the large number of students seeking admission in technical institutes, the state education department has increased the number of seats in engineering colleges from the current 18,000 to 35,000, an addition of 17,000 seats. The move is targeted at making available enough seats for all the science stream pass-outs who may want to join an engineering course.

State Education Minister Ramanlal Vora on Thursday announced the increase in the number of seats. He said, “For the total 66,000 science students passing this year, the addition of 17,000 new seats to engineering colleges across the state in 2009 will be sufficient to accommodate the students interested in these courses.”

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