TRS tweaks Office of Profit rules

Hyderabad: The state government on Wednesday brought out an Ordinance to exempt the post of chairman of government owned corporations from the Office of Profit and also to pave the way to appoint MLAs and MLCs as the head of the corporations which are under its control. The reason seems to be to accommodate the large number of elected legislators who could not be accommodated in the Cabinet.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao held a meeting of the Cabinet during which it was resolved to bring out an Ordnance appointing chairmen of 28 corporations including the Rythu Samanvaya Samithi. Following the recommendation of the Cabinet, the Governor on Wednesday issued The Telangana Payment of Salaries and Pension and Removal of Disqualifications (Amendment) Ordinance, 2019 (Ordinance 7 of 2019).

Sources close to the Chief Minister revealed that he had changed his mind about appointing senior leaders of the party as chairmen of government owned corporations and decided to accommodate party MLAs who have not got a berth in his Cabinet and also MLAs who had defected from the Congress party to merge with the TRS.

Soon after the Assembly results on December 10, 2018 Mr Rao, while talking to reporters, had said that defeated MLAs and also elected MLAs would not be given nominated posts and that the party’s senior leaders will be appointed to these posts.

But that is likely to change with this Ordinance and Mr Rao’s change of mind.

 Some 12 MLAs of the Congress joined the TRS soon after the Assembly elections of December 2018. One of them, Sabitha Indra Reddy, got a berth in the Cabinet but the rest are awaiting plum posts in the government and are not happy with the delay in getting them. To appease them, sources said, Mr Rao has decided to give them corporation chairmen posts.  

Congress MLAs G. Venkataramana Reddy, Sudhir Reddy, Ch Lingaiah, Rohit Reddy, Haripriya Nayak, V Venkateswara Rao and Athram Sakku, were promised posts in the government.

Sources said that TRS MLAs Bajireddy Goverdhan, Padma Devender Reddy, Aroori Ramesh, K P Vivekananda Goud, Bigala Ganesh Gupta andRekha Nayak would likely get the nominated posts.

 Those who have been in the party since its inception are said to be unhappy with Mr Rao amending the law related to the nominated posts.

Meanwhile, some former chairmen of various corporations are also lobbying for re-nomination through minister K.T. Rama Rao.