August blues for employees

​Warangal: Already short-staffed with their back against the wall, the officials feeling the heat of onerous task of implementing a slew of initiatives lined up for launch in August. In addition to their regular duties, all the district and mandal level officials have their task cut out as they have to look after the functioning of gram panchayats (GPs) as the special officers, besides ensuring the success of initiatives ready for launch - Rythu Bima bond distribution, Buffalo Distribution Scheme, Kanti Velugu, launch of new GPs and Mission Bhagiratha.

The government has decided to appoint special officers to all the GPs with the term of sarpanches is to end by this month. It may be noted here that elections to GPs whose term will end on July 31 were held up following the directions of the High Court. 

On August 2, as many as 632 new GPs will come into existence in erstwhile Warangal district taking the total number of GPs to 1,708. District-wise break up of GPs: Warangal Urban 130 (26); Warangal Rural 401 (136); Mahabubabad 461 (239); Janagaon 301 (90). The number of new GPs is in parenthesis.

Even though almost all the departments in the districts are already understaffed, it was decided to appoint gazette-rank officials as the Special Officers to all GPs. The fact is that since the creation of smaller districts, several key posts were held by in-charge officers in almost all the districts. Against this backdrop, the appointment of Special Officers has become a headache to the district administration.

“Only Warangal Urban district, which has just 130 GPs, has appointed special officers as per the guidelines of the government. None of the other four districts – Warangal Rural, Mahabubabad, Bhupalpally and Janagaon – was able to do so. At least 50 per cent of the special officers are below the rank of gazette rank. At some places even the newly-recruited agriculture extension officers were also appointed as Special Officers,” a senior official on condition of anonymity said, revealing details to The Hans India. He said that August is going to be a hectic month for the employees as they have to handle multitasking.

It’s learnt that due to staff crunch some of the officials were entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing two GPs in Janagaon district. On the other hand, the state government has lined up distribution of buffaloes to 2.17 lakh dairy farmers under its Rs 800-crore Buffalo Distribution Scheme on August 1, Kanti Velugu, a universal eye screening programme, and Rythu Bima bond distribution from August 15.