Revanth Cracks Whip on Lazy Officials

Hyderabad: Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Tuesday issued a stern warning to secretaries of all departments, making it clear that complacency, inefficiency and a lack of commitment would not be tolerated. He directed senior IAS officials to improve their performance and responsiveness to public needs, cautioning that failure to show visible change would invite strict action.

Revanth Reddy announced that henceforth the performance of all departmental secretaries would be reviewed every month and instructed them to submit detailed reports on their individual work and departmental progress to the Chief Secretary. He further stated that he would personally review their performance once every three months.

The Chief Minister held a review meeting with secretaries of all departments at the Secretariat. The meeting which lasted for three hours was attended by Special Chief Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, Secretaries, senior officials besides officials of the Chief Minister’s Office.

Revanth Reddy instructed IAS officers to visit the field every 10 days and mandated that they must conduct at least three field inspections every month to assess ground-level implementation of schemes. Stressing accountability, he said all senior officials must work with a sense of responsibility and ownership.

The Chief Minister observed that lack of coordination among departments and officials often resulted in poor outcomes and suggested creating a structured mechanism to ensure inter-departmental coordination, particularly for development programmes. He directed all departments to move forward with clear action plans to implement the Telangana Rising Vision 2047

Expressing confidence, Revanth Reddy said that if all departments functioned in close coordination, the state could easily achieve the long-term goals outlined in the Telangana Rising Vision 2047.

He urged officials to dispel the notion that the Vision document was merely for publicity and asked them to immediately begin implementing every component of it. The Chief Minister instructed departments to prepare concrete action plans aligned with the government’s CURE, PURE and RARE development framework, which forms the backbone of the state’s future planning.

Reflecting on governance challenges, Revanth Reddy said the absence of clear policies in key sectors such as energy, education, irrigation and health during the previous BRS regime had led to several problems.

He noted that the present government had addressed this gap by formulating and implementing policies in critical areas and releasing a comprehensive Vision 2047 document to guide long-term development. He stressed that even the best plans would succeed fully only with committed support from the bureaucracy.

The Chief Minister informed the meeting that nearly 10 lakh employees were working across government departments on regular, contract and outsourcing bases. He directed officials to submit complete employee data to the Chief Secretary by January 26 and warned that departments would be held fully accountable for the accuracy of the information. He asked officials to ensure that outsourced employees were receiving salaries and EPF benefits without delay.

Revanth Reddy also made it clear that government offices across Hyderabad and the state should no longer function from rented buildings. He ordered that all such offices be shifted to available government buildings by January 26 and instructed departments to identify vacant land and prepare estimates for constructing permanent buildings where needed.

He sought immediate reports on the status of municipal offices, hostels, anganwadis and welfare hostels operating from rented premises and assured that the government would allocate necessary funds.

Stressing optimal utilisation of Central Sponsored Scheme (CSS) funds, he directed departments to promptly prepare proposals to draw maximum central assistance and ensure timely release of the state’s matching share.