In a first, the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) has decided to appoint a person from the Scheduled Tribe (ST) community as a temple priest. After the LDF government came to power, 133 priests from backward communities and 19 from Scheduled Castes (SC) have been appointed as priests.
This time, 18 persons from Scheduled Caste and one person from Scheduled Tribe communities will be recommended for the appointment as part-time priests in Travancore Devaswam Board.
Kerala Devaswam Minister Kadakampally Surendran said in a Facebook post that the rank list, which was collated as per the special notification for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe was published on November 5 to fill the vacancies. There were four vacancies for the Scheduled Tribes, but only one application was received.
So far, 310 persons have been selected for the post of part-time priests in the Travancore Devaswam Board from the rank list published on August 23, 2017. As there were not enough candidates from the SC/ST category for the examination at that time, the rank list prepared as per the special notification for the said category was published on Thursday.
After the LDF government came to power, the recruitment board has been reorganised and 815 candidates have been selected for various posts in Travancore, Cochin, and Malabar Devaswam boards.