Prathyush Sinha Committee refuses to change state cadre for Telangana and Andhra AIS officers

Hyderabad: In a setback to All India Service (AIS) officers, the Centre-appointed Prathyush Sinha Committee has refused to change their state cadre as had been sought by many officers and decided to stick to its provisional allotment made to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh on August 22.

Both the governments had tried to convince the Committee to allow swapping of officials between the two states but the Committee has referred the issue to the Department of Training and Personnel (DoPT) to take a final call on the issue.

Though the committee received about 100 objections from IAS, IPS and IFS officers over the provisional allotment, it ignored them on the grounds that AIS officers could not claim “options” unlike state government employees, to choose the state of their choice.

Telangana Chief Secretary Dr Rajiv Sharma and his AP counterpart I.Y.R. Krishna Rao attended a meeting convened by the Committee in New Delhi on Tuesday to discuss the objections raised by AIS officers over the provisional allotment.

AIS officers had been given a week to file their objections and nearly 100 objections had been filed. Though the Committee had assured to change the state-cadre on “spouse grounds”, it did not take up the issue but stated that it would be considered by the DoPT.