Good demand for MLA letters as employees look for transfers

Vizianagaram: The government staff right from the level of peon to district level like joint directors, deputy directors, municipal commissioners and tahsildars are busy trying to get a recommendation letter from the MLA concerned to get posted in their respective constituencies. Actually the AP government has released the schedule to reshuffle the staff members who have completed five years of service in a particular place and it has released the norms to apply for transfers as per the guidelines.

As per the schedule, the entire transfers would be completed by August 31 and the staff members who will be moved from their place to new stations have to resume their duties from September 1. In this regard, the government has mentioned that approval of MLA is must to work in the constituencies concerned as mandal level officers.

These conditions have forced the employees to get the MLA recommendation letters and get posted in the constituencies.

Panchayat engineering, revenue, panchayat raj, civil supplies, forest, transport, power, endowments, industries, stamps and registrations and commercial taxes are some of the important departments which will reshuffle their staff members.

Now the employees are making rounds to the offices of MLAs to get the recommendation letters and they have to submit the same along with their application to the HoD of the district.

Now the postings with good additional income have high demand and the staff members are even getting ready to pay something to the MLA concerned to get the recommendation letters. Industries, Revenue, Municipal Administration, Stamps and Registrations and AP Transco are some of the departments with high demand and the employees are eager to get the posts by paying around Rs four to five lakh based on the station.

For this the officials are trying to woo the mandal-level leaders to receive the blessings of MLAs and Ministers. Places like Kothavalasa, L Kota and Bhogapuram are some of the places that have good demand as the staff can attend duties from Visakhapatnam city also.

It is learnt that the sub-registrars are even ready to pay more than Rs 15 lakh to get posted at places like Bhogapuram as they can get back their investment with in two to three months.

An engineer of Panchayat Raj department under the condition of anonymity, said, “ I have paid Rs 2 lakh to get posted at my favourite place and I submitted the MLA letter along with my application. It would be more comfortable for me to spend with my family and shuttling from Visakhapatnam as my wife is working there and my children are studying there. So I don’t bother paying the amount to them.”