Vijayawada: Major Revamp of entire bureaucracy on cards

Vijayawada: The long awaited revamp of the administration has begun in Andhra Pradesh. Chief Minister, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, who shook up the top wrung administration recently by transferring Praveen Prakash, his Principal Secretary to New Delhi and also forced the former DGP D Gautham Sawang to retire to become the head of the AP Public Service Commission, has now turned his attention to the complete bureaucratic reshuffle, it is learnt.

Special Chief Secretary in the CMO and the EO of TTD, Jawahar Reddy has now been given key departments like GAD, Revenue, Medical and Health, Legislative Affairs, Industries and Investments and Infrastructure, CMO Establishment subjects in addition to a couple of more.

A Secretary in the CMO, Solomon Arokiaraj, has been invested with Civil Supplies, Education, Panchayati Raj, Mines, IT and electronics and Welfare etc while another Secretary, Dhanunjaya Reddy, has been asked to handle Finance, Planning, Irrigation, Agriculture and Allied Departments, Municipal Administration and Tourism. Mutyala Raju, additional secretary to the CM will interact with people's representatives while taking care of Land, Registration and Stamps, R & B and Labour etc.

There had been several complaints against Praveen Prakash while he was here from the MLAs and MLCs and other party functionaries that he was preventing their interaction with the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister got flooded with complaints from his party leaders in this regard and it ultimately led to the transfer of the official.

The urgency in revamping the administration is evident as the Chief Minister is keen to put new districts in place as planned from Ugadi. Selection of Collectors and Joint Collectors is key for good administration in the proposed new districts in the State.

It is not going to be a smooth transformation for the administration as the announcement has led to much resentment in almost all districts, be it with regard to the distances, new district headquarters or because of its placement in a said district.

In all, the officials have received 7,500 objections in one month and Vizianagaram district alone has sent 4,500 objections. However, the officials say that though the number looks larger, the actual objections were confined to 60 here. Krishna district is second (in the number of objections) after Vizianagaram.

Secretary of the Planning Department, Vijaya Kumar, told the media that a comprehensive report would be submitted to the Chief Minister soon on the objections. He said that in most places the objections had arisen because of the proposal to make the Assembly segments as districts. These objections were mostly about the operational and logistics issues for the people.

By March end, a notification will have to be issued incorporating viable suggestions about the new districts, he said. AP government has attempted to elicit public opinion in the best possible way, he says.