Centre sets up panel to share employees

Hyderabad: The Centre has stepped up the process of dividing the state by constituting a three-member committee to execute the laborious and contentious task of division of employees between the two states.

The committee will consist of retired bureaucrat C.R. Kamalanathan, Chief Secretary P.K. Mohanty and a joint-secretary from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Official sources told Deccan Chronicle that the Centre had informed the state about constituting the committee which would come up with guidelines for handling the issues of employees and pensioners.

The Centre zeroed in on Kamalanathan, a 1965 batch IAS officer, because of his vast experience in service matters of the state.

As a member of Jayabharat Reddy committee, he was instrumental in the then N.T. Rama Rao government bringing the 610 GO. The GO is considered to be a Bible for maintaining zonal regulations, a unique feature in the entire country.

Sources said that the committee’s biggest problem would be following the preferred method of allotting the cadre based on the choice of the respective employee. It is because several employees might prefer to work in Hyderabad which is a free zone for several departments.

According to the Centre, the broad principle of allocation of state cadre employees is first by option, next by domicile (home district) and lastly by inclusion of junior most personnel in the reverse order of seniority.

If the number of posts allocated to a successor state is more than the total number of ‘optees’ and ‘domicile’ (home district), the employees lower down in the seniority position in the cadre are considered for allocation even against their options, it said.

With regard to all-India services, there will be two separate cadres — one for residuary state of Andhra Pradesh and another for Telangana.