Telangana: Group-I and Group-II officials vie for posts in new districts

Hyderabad: Group-I and Group-II officers in Telangana have been engaged in a tussle over becoming joint collectors for the soon-to-formed 17 new districts. These posts are normally held by IAS cadre officers.

Given the shortage of IAS officers, the Telangana government is planning to promote Group-II officers working in revenue service and appoint them as joint collectors. Group-I officers are strongly opposing this saying they are superior to Group-II cadre officers and cannot work under them.

The Group-I officers are demanding that the government set up Telangana Administrative Services (TAS) immediately with Group-I officers and appoint those among them having seniority of more than eight years, as collectors and joint collectors.

“It’s not fair to give priority to Group-II officers working in revenue department and promote them as joint collectors. Group-I cadre is superior to Group-II. The government should give preference to Group-I officers first for appointment as joint collectors irrespective of which department they are working for,” said Mamindla Chandrashekar Goud, president of the Telangana Group-I Officers’ Association.

Mr Goud said that the government’s policy has been biased in favour of officers working in revenue services. He demanded that Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao constitute TAS immediately with Group-I officers along the lines of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha.

“We toured all these states recently to study how they were dealing with shortage of IAS officers. They had constituted their own state administrative services for this and appointed Group-I officers as collectors and joint collectors,” he said.