Hyderabad: As many as 20 IAS officers holding key positions in the Telangana government including the Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma, are on leave either on foreign trips, training programmes or for Bihar election duties virtually bringing the state administration to a grinding halt.
With the state already facing a shortage of IAS officers post bifurcation of AP, the absence of several officers at a time has led to pending files in crucial industries, revenue and other departments. IAS officers on duty are struggling as they have been given additional responsibility of IAS officers who are on leave.
The Chief Secretary is in Israel to attend a conference for over a week, while two senior IAS officials of industries and commerce department, Sabyasachi Ghosh, are on leave to attend ANUGA Trade Fair in Cologne, Germany and Arvind Kumar, to take part in a conference in France and Sweden.
Besides three senior IAS officers, B.P.Acharya, (principal secretary, planning department), Rajeshwar Tiwari (principal secretary, environment, forests) and B.R.Meena (principal secretary, revenue department) are on leave to attend mid-career training programme for Oct. 11 to Nov. 6 at LBSNAA, Mussoorie.
Another 14 IAS officers have been assigned election duties as ‘observers’ in Bihar.
The activities of their departments has almost come to a standstill with in-charge IAS officers, who are already holding two to three portfolios are not in a position to examine and clear the files. A holiday mood prevails in the Secretariat much ahead of Dasara with the absence of so many officials.
Besides, the Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and his ministers visiting the Secretariat occasionally, the staff are relaxed with not much work in hand.
