Hyderabad: Frequent transfer of top officials, mainly secretaries in key departments like the GHMC, are not only putting brakes on several development activities but also adversely impacting implementation of some important decisions taken by the government.

Apart from the civic body, the Energy department, Panchayat Raj and Rural Development and Information and Public Relations (I&PR) have been all facing difficulties due to frequent changes of their secretaries in the last one year. The state government posted four secretaries in the energy department only to transfer them in double-quick time. This unexpected transfer has impacted the performance of the entire energy wing. This is more pronounced as regards the progress of the Yadadri thermal power generation project, efforts to boost solar power generation and other infrastructure development works. After the transfer of senior IAS official and energy secretary Syed Ali Murtaza Rizvi, the government appointed Ronald Rose as his successor.

However, due to an in-service dispute and on CAT orders, the state government was compelled to relieve the latter and facilitate his switchover to Andhra Pradesh.

To fill the gap, senior IAS official Sandeep Kumar Sultania was given full additional charge of the energy wing, a position in which he was barely in for four months.

In a fresh reshuffle of bureaucrats, senior official Naveen Mittal was appointed as energy secretary. Officials in the know maintain that such frequent transfer of energy secretaries are not only causing hardships to other officials but also leading to inordinate delays in completing pending issues related to the infrastructure development works for power transmission and other issues in the GENCO and TRANSCO wings.

The GHMC has been bearing the brunt at the alarming rate with which commissioners are being shunted out in three to four months. The bizarreness is evidenced by the fact that the corporation had four commissioners in the last 15 months, most of them politically motivated.

Soon after Congress came to power in the state, Ronald Rose was replaced by Amrapali Kata as the GHMC Commissioner. However, the haphazard transfer was exposed when Amrapali was repatriated to Andhra Pradesh after CAT issued orders to that extent. K Ilambariti took charge as the Commissioner in October and was replaced by RV Karnana in a little over five months.

The frequent changes have created a lot of trouble in executing civic works, lament many officials in the department. Moreover, differences cropped up between GHMC Commissioner and HYDRAA Commissioner AV Rangnath, ostensibly due to lack of communication between the two wings on many issues.

Even the panchayat raj and rural development wing has not been spared of the trauma. Sandeep Kumar Sultania and Lokesh Kumar served as secretaries for nine months and recently N Sridhar was posted as the secretary of the department. Officials said that the ambitious village development programme involving the participation of the local community was not taken up as seriously due to transfer of top officials.

The I&PR department also witnessed the regular shifting of the special commissioner to the department.

IAS officials Ashok Reddy, M Hanumanth Rao and S Harish stayed in their posts for just about six months each. In the recent rejig of IAS officers, the government appointed Ch Priyanka as special commissioner.

Some officials pointed out that the government was transferring secretaries of the I&PR wing as part of the reshuffle of other departments and there was no other reason behind it.