Creation of new districts to impose financial burden on Telangana govt
Hyderabad: The creation of 15 new districts will impose a heavy financial burden on the TS government. The revenue department has estimated that it would require nearly Rs 800 crore to build integrated collectorate buildings in the new districts which would house all head offices in a single premises spread over 25 acres each, as per the directions of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.
The CM also wanted to upgrade the existing collectorate buildings into integrated complexes for which the expenditure has been estimated at Rs 600 crore. Mr Rao has also asked officials for reorganisation of existing revenue divisions and mandal divisions, for which new offices would have to be built, at an estimated cost of another Rs 100 crore.
This apart, the government needs to appoint 25,000 staff in the new collectorates, revenue divisions and mandal divisions, for which there will be an additional salary burden, which is yet to be estimated.
Mr Rao asked officials to build head offices of around 30 departments in single premises along with district collectorates for the convenience of the people, besides administrative ease. The expenditure was calculated by estimating construction cost at Rs 2,000 per sq. ft. as per the specifications of R&B department.
“We would need built-up area of nearly 3 lakh sq. ft to house all offices in an integrated collectorate building. This would cost nearly Rs 800 crore in the 15 districts. If existing collectorates are also upgraded to integrated office complexes, another Rs 600 crore would be required,” said a revenue official. The CM's proposal on creation of 18 new revenue divisions and 40 new mandals will also add to the financial burden.
Mr Rao wanted integrated office complexes even for revenue and mandal divisions. Officials estimated that five acres of land would be needed to build integrated complex in a revenue division and 2 acres in mandal division.
They estimated the built-up area required for each revenue division office at 20,000 sq. ft and 1,000 sft for each mandal division office. At present, the staff strength of TS government is 3.50 lakh, just 0.8 per cent of population. The cadre strength was determined based on population in 1965, which is still in force. Officials estimated that the government needs to appoint an additional 25,000 staff to support new districts, revenue and mandal divisions.
