White paper on new districts sought

​Hyderabad: Describing the decision of state government on formation of new districts as hasty and not need-based, Forum for Good Governance (FGG) on Tuesday said that new districts would benefit only realtors, contractors and politicians.

Addressing a press conference here along with FGG vice presidents M V Krishna Reddy and Dr Rao Chelikani, secretary M Padmanabha Reddy said that the more districts would only create new jobs at class- IV cadre and ministerial services.

He said, “At present Rs 70,000 crore is spent on administration, mostly for salaries of employees and other administration and only 25 per cent of the funds are spent on people. With the creation of 15 new districts, the wage bill will increase to one lakh crore per annum, which the state cannot afford. Added to it, the capital cost of construction of offices, staff quarters will need hundreds of crores.”

Padmanabha Reddy said that the argument of the government that the state government would get more funds from Centre was not correct. “There are certain guidelines through which central funds are distributed to states. In rare cases a district is taken as a unit for releasing funds.

There may be some districts like Adilabad and Mahabubnagar where creating new districts can be considered, but not 15 districts in one go,” said Padmanabha Reddy. The FGG office bearers said that they had submitted a representation to the Chief Secretary, but so far no action was taken.

They demanded the government to bring out a white paper on the need for new districts, the additional costs involved etc. The new districts would benefit the realtors and contractors, who would be involved in construction of new buildings in the district headquarters and also political leaders, who would get posts like ZP chairperson etc, he said.