Telangana New district caught in transfer bind

​Hyderabad: As the Telangana government is ready to begin the transfer of officials en masse from Friday onwards in the State, all most all departments, including the key government wings, are clueless in filling the vacancies that would arise after the transfer of existing staff in the newly-formed 21 districts. 

The key departments like Education, Medical and Health, Revenue, Agriculture, Police and Panchayat Raj will have to bear the brunt of transfers as no official working in the old district headquarters and in State offices is ready to go to new districts. 

Though the submission of applications for transfers begins officially on Friday, the department heads are already flooded with pleas from officials working in new districts to relieve them immediately as they were shifted on order to serve after the reorganisation of districts in 2016. 

The officials said that government permitted 40 per cent of the staff working in districts and State head offices to transfer to other places before June 15, this year. The important departments are already functioning with skeletal staff in the districts. 

If 40 per cent of the existing staff are transferred and vacancies are not filled immediately, the entire administration will come to a standstill, Telangana Employees Union President A Padma Chary said.  He said of more than 30 departments, only six important departments have created cadre strength to ensure smooth administration at the time of creation of new districts.

It is mandatory these departments maintain cadre strength during the transfers. The transferred officials will not get relive orders until someone occupies their position. The other departments which are yet to finalise cadre strength will also face similar trouble, the employees’ union leaders said, adding that there was also no clarity on the power given to issue reliving orders to officials in new districts. The government issued circulars to take up transfers taking into consideration the erstwhile 10 districts only, but there was no clarity whether the employees in new districts seek relieving orders from the Collectors of the old districts.

The employees’ unions already brought to the notice of Chief Secretary SK Joshi the hurdles to be faced by the employees to get transfer orders in the scheduled time between June 1 and 15. The union leaders will also appraise the government of the problems being encountered by employees from time to time and resolve them instantly, Chary said.