Telangana to review cadre strength in 33 districts to avoid staff crunch

Hyderabad: The government which had reorganised the state into 33 new districts is now working towards addressing the staff crunch. The government is now determining the employee and officer cadre strength in the state. Due to the shortage of IAS officers, the government has been running district affairs by appointing joint collector cadre officers as collectors.

When the state was formed, the Centre had determined the requirement of All India Service Officers as 163 IAS officers, 112 IPS and 65 belonging to the Indian Forest Service.

According to official sources, the state has 110 IAS officers, 80 IPS and 49 from the IFS. The Centre has allotted 45 new IAS officers to the state, and the government has requested for an additional 60.

After the reorganising the districts, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar succeeded in convincing the Centre to notifying the new zonal system by introducing seven zones in place of the two earlier.

Officials said that with the formation two new districts — Mulugu and Narayanpet — after the elections, the Centre has to again notify the zones. The state government has to determine its cadre strength requirement right from the Class 4 employees to All India Service Officers.

Sources in the government revealed that 2.95 lakh employees working in different cadres including 20,000 heads of department to be distributed among the 33 districts.

Sources pointed out that in view of the Lok Sabha elections after March, the state government is trying to complete the exercise by the end of February and get approval from the Centre for the new zonal system.