A rejig to usher in Golden Telangana

​Hyderabad: With the President giving his assent to the new zonal system proposed by Telangana State, the entire administration is set to be overhauled once the main challenge viz. finalization of cadre strength at various levels is addressed satisfactorily. The government has begun the giant exercise of finalization of cadre strength in every department at district, zonal and multi-zonal levels under the new dispensation. 

The Telangana government has taken up a major revamp of the entire administration for the first time, with the last one, of undivided Andhra Pradesh, done in 1975. In that year, the State administration was created based on the zonal system introduced to provide jobs at local level through a Presidential order. 

On Thursday, the Centre issued a gazette notification approving the new zonal system for Telangana state.            
Officials said that the major challenge before the government is finalization of cadre strength in each department at the district, zonal and multi-zonal levels. After reorganization of the districts, the existing staff have been deployed in 21 new districts on “order to serve.” 

In the absence of appropriate cadre strength, almost all the departments have been functioning with skeletal staff. Under the new zonal system, finalization of cadre strength --be it for district, zone or multi-zone -- is mandatory. The other important issues like fair distribution of posts among zones, creation of zonal offices and finalization of service rules would have to be addressed as part of rebuilding the new administrative system. 

A senior official said that the departments would have to fix the cadre strength at three levels.  The posts should be so created in every zone and multi-zone that there is no room for any trouble in giving promotions to officials in the same rank. The other major challenge before the government is to bring in new service rules for employees who are elevated to state cadre posts through promotions. Earlier, state cadre posts were filled through direct recruitment. 

Officials said that a special cell with experts drawn from the state administration is likely to be created to give directions to all the departments in the creation of cadre strength at all levels. The fresh recruitment process under the new zonal system would also be altered based on the requirement of manpower in each wing.  The official process of revamping the administration would be a continuous process.  It would take at least one year to rejig the administration completely.