Government gets cracking on staffing process for new Zilla Parishads

Hyderabad: The Panchayat Raj department has begun preparations for the appointment of officers and other staff for the 23 new Zilla Parishads that will come into existence from July 5. The higher officials of the department have directed the existing Zilla Parishad officers to prepare the list of the officers and staff of them from whom the official machinery of the new ZPs could be drawn.

Sources in the department said that the local officials and staff of the newly formed Zilla Parishads would be appointed in their respective ZPs. The process would be completed by the end of this month. It may be noted here that the government has formed 23 new Zilla Parishads over above the previous nine ZPs two years ago.

Elections to all the 32 ZPs were conducted in May and the ZP chairmen and vice chairmen were elected in this month. They would take charge in the first week of July. The term of the existing nine Zilla Parishads would end on July 4 and the new Zilla Parishads would come into existence from July 5.

The inauguration of the new ZPs have been kept in pending till July as the Panchayat Raj Act did not allow for the premature dissolution of the existing PR bodies. Each Zilla Parishad office requires about 50 officers and other staff. The ZP headquarters would have five to seven departments. The ZP headquarters is divided into education, BRGF, accounts, planning, engineering and two other departments.

Some ZPs have five and some have seven departments. On the whole all the 32 ZPs would require about 1,500 staff and officials. The government may tweak the number of sections of the ZPs and form three to four wings. Each ZP must have planning, engineering and education wings. The rest of the departments may be merged into one.

Each ZPTC needs a PR engineering official, planning office and chief executive officer. Each wing requires section officers and supporting staff. The government may appoint about 50 staff in each ZP.

In the existing ZPs there is about 700 staff and 50 per cent of them may be transferred to the new ZPs. The rest of the posts may be filled with the staff of the Mandal Parishads.

However, the Mandal Parishads may face staff crunch due to this. The officials of the Panchayat Raj department said that the government may recruit new staff to fill the vacancies arising in the Mandal Parishads to overcome this problem.