Job wise: Telangana to get its own graft-free Public Service Commission

Hyderabad: The Telangana government has decided to adopt UPSC-type norms for the newly created Telangana State Public Service Commission to ensure transparency and a clean image. There will be no political appointments to TSPSC unlike in APPSC where it is used by chief ministers or ruling parties to appoint their followers as members.

Several political appointments to APPSC by previous governments had turned controversial as members had faced serious allegations of resorting to irregularities in job selections.

Some members appointed during the Congress regime between 2004 and 2014 were arrested and even jailed after cases were filed against them and lakhs of people who would applied for jobs in response to notifications issued by the Commission had lost confidence in the body.

However, the government did not have the power to remove the chairman or members since it is a constitutional body and only the President of India could approve such a move. As per the new norms to be adopted by the Telangana government, only public servants with clean track records and service of over 20 years will be considered for appointment as members.

The Commission will have a chairman and 10 members. CM, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, has asked officials to draft appointment norms in such that half of the members should be public servants and the other half should be experts in their fields.