Telangana Government gears up administration

Hyderabad: The Telangana state administration is gearing up to address various problems that may arise out of the extension of lockdown till April 30.

Following the decision of the government to extend the lockdown, employees from the rank of Assistant Secretary to Secretary of different wings have been asked to monitor the relief operations round the clock.

Besides the Police, Health, Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, Municipal Administration and Panchayat Raj officials have been roped into action at field level.

In the first phase of 21-day lockdown, the services of only a few officials of various departments were utilised. Now, two lakh out of the total 2.75 lakh strength of the employees will be taking part in various activities actively.

Soon after Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced the extension of the total shutdown, Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar held a teleconference with Secretaries of all departments and instructed them to make use of services of every government employee at ground level in the next two weeks.

The Cooperative and Marketing department officials were instructed to assist the Agriculture department in the procurement and storage of paddy and other food grains.

After providing medical facility for coronavirus patients, the major big task before the government is to procure paddy. For this, assistance of every department, including the Revenue and Police, is being sought.

Similarly, official teams from Animal Husbandry, Dairy and Fisheries will be deployed at different parts of the state to ensure people face no scarcity of essential commodities.

All Horticulture officials were given the responsibility of transportation of vegetables and fruits to the markets from the farms regularly.

Since it has been decided that rice mills and other food processing units would begin their operations from Sunday onwards, the officials of the Industries department have already gone into action and are visiting the units.

All the officials of the Planning department resumed their duties at mandal and district level and assist the Collectors by furnishing required data for relief operations.

From Monday onwards, the Planning wing officials will also take up random survey on the effects of virus on people's livelihoods and the sector-wise losses.

Telangana Employees Union president Padma Chary said that except the Education department, all 30-plus government departments will be active at the field level.

In view of maintaining social distance, 20 percent of the total staff will only be allowed to perform their duties in Secretariat every day. In the districts, all the staff will now be on field duty.

Officials said that almost 2.50 lakh government employees are at the disposal of service round the clock. In case any emergency arises, 50,000 plus teaching staff in the Education department will also be pressed into service.

This apparently is the first exit plan of the state government. However, the situation would be reviewed after April 30, officials said.