Telangana plans new service rules

​Hyderabad: With the deadline for creation of new districts fast approaching, Telangana state government is planning to introduce new service rules for government employees to speed up division of employees between the proposed and existing districts.

State CCLA (Chief Commissioner Land Administration) Raymond Peter and Special Chief Secretary to Revenue department Pradeep Chandra recently held a meeting to finalise the staffing pattern in the proposed districts. The meeting identified several difficulties in the allotment of staff under the existing service rules.

The division of employees selected at zonal level has been identified as the first stumbling block to allot them to the proposed districts. Two zones have been in existence in Telangana. Adilabad, Karimnagar, Warangal and Khammam come under Zone V and the remaining six districts – Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Nizamabad, Mahbubnagar, Medak and Nalgonda districts are covered under Zone VI.

The existing service rules insist that employees selected at the zone level would have to stay in their own zone only to protect their service. There is no provision to protect the services of employees shifted to other zones in general.

Another major challenge before the government is to address the services rules created by different departments on its own. For instance, the agriculture department formulated guidelines on its own in giving promotions to its employees. It adopted the zonal system, while the state health department is following a different set of rules.

The other big task is the creation of district as a unit for every department for the division of employees as several departments do not have district as a unit for
functioning.

Officials said that removal of the zonal system, creation of district as a unit for every department and bringing in uniform promotion system were some of the major proposals that are under the active consideration of the state government. A decision to this effect would be taken after eliciting the opinion of all Heads of the Departments (HoDs) soon.

Nearly 40 departments would be roped in to the giant task of allotment of employees in the proposed districts. The demarcation of boundaries in new mandals, revenue divisions and district is almost on the verge of completion.

As instructed by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, the creation of new districts would be completed by Dasara in October this year, a senior revenue official said.

By: Patan Afzal Babu