No planning for District Planning Office

Karimnagar: Planning is key to development of a district but the same is lacking in solving the staff scarcity in District Planning Office, Karimnagar.

The District Planning Officer has to prepare district annual plans for the districts and to place the same before the District Planning Boards for consideration before submission to the government. The officer also has to monitor the implementation of various plan schemes in the

district, identify the limiting factors in the implementation of plan schemes and seek specific suggestions from the government for ensuring speedy and efficient implementation of plan schemes.

But after the formation of new districts, the planning offices are facing severe staff crunch, which forced the officials to utilise the services of lower cadre for district posts. This allegedly resulted in disorganised system in all new districts.

In January 2017, Chief Planning Officer (CPO) Subbarao was retired and since then no regular CPO has been appointed. In 2018, Umamaheshwar Rao was joined on promotion and worked only for one month and retired. It was stated that he couldn't do anything particular during his short period of service.

Statistical Officer Purnachander is on long leave, who went abroad and the superintendent has gone on deputation. Now the entire district office is functioning with two District Statistical Officer (DSOs) and four outsourcing employees.

CPO office plays a crucial role in the collection of economic and agriculture data and monitoring, evaluation of MP lads, Assembly constituency development fund, mineral development fund and temperature, rainfall data collection. But all these duties were not being done due to staff scarcity resulting in poor planning of district development.

Similar to the district CPO, the mandal-level offices also suffering with low staff. Only six assistant statistical officers are working in 15 mandals. In Peddapalli district, DSO and SO posts are vacant and only nine ASOs are working.

In Jagtial district also, AD and DSO posts are not filled and half of the ASO are vacant and same situation is prevailing in Sircilla district. Taking Karimnagar as a nodal district, the new districts are depending more on Karimnagar CPO office for court cases and other issues.

This is burdening the low staff and in taking more time than usual in solving the problems.