Hyderabad: Distribution of employees between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh is likely to be delayed further. Over 50,000 state-cadre employees, who are currently working temporarily for both the states, are awaiting their final allotment.
The Centre-appointed Kamalanathan Committee has failed to issue guidelines for distribution due to differences between both the states over retirement age though they were supposed to be issued two weeks ago. The Committee is expected to meet again on July 23 to break the deadlock.
Committee chairman C.R. Kamalanathan had drafted the guidelines on June 30 after meeting chief secretaries of both the states recommending that “options” should be given to employees to choose the state of their choice. He had announced that the guidelines would be posted on the website and two weeks would be given to employees to seek objections and suggestions before issuing final guidelines.
Though it has been nearly three weeks since then, the guidelines are yet to be issued. The reason is that AP has increased the retirement age from 58 to 60 years while the Telangana government has not.
This disparity has led to confusion among employees regarding which state to opt for. Even Telangana employees, who are set to retire within two years, are now keen to opt for AP to avail the benefit, which the AP government feels will increase its financial burden.
Moreover, if Telangana employees opt for AP and retire there, the retirement benefits will have to be borne by the AP government.
To address this issue, the committee has sought an opinion regarding whether the Telangana government also has plans to raise the retirement age limit, but there has been no answer so far.
The committee is planning to meet again on July 23 to discuss these issues and the guidelines on staff distribution will be out only after that.
