Andhra Pradesh bifurcation: Staff fight to retain secretariat posting

Hyderabad: While nearly 800 out of 1,800 employees in Secretariat have been allotted to Telangana, Telangana-employees allege that nearly 300 Seemandhra employees have submitted fake nativity certificates and secured postings here. They have warned that they will not allow Seemandhra employees, who secured postings by tampering their service 0records, to work in the Telangana Secretariat.

The employees have collected data of Seemandhra employees who had taken part in demonstrations against Telangana and burnt copies of the Telangana-Bill in Secretariat, but still claimed to be locals of Telangana and secured postings. Telangana -employees contend that they cannot work with such employees who insulted Telangana people and hurt their sentiments by burning copies of the Telangana-Bill and hit it with chappals.

The employees brought to the notice of officials the case of a female  employee, Ms Nirmala, who works as deputy secretary in the school education department. She burnt copies of the T-Bill in Secretariat during demonstration, but was now allotted to Telangana-Secretariat. She had headed the women’s wing of Seemandhra Secretariat Employees Forum and took part in “United AP” agitation.

“Copies of Telangana-Bills were burnt only to show our anger against bifurcation  and not to insult or hurt the sentiments of Telangana people. We held demonstrations in secretariat for several days with an aim of keeping the state united. Now that the state is divided, it is not fair to target us just because we took part in the agitation. Even Telangana-employees held demonstrations. It’s all in the past now and we have to move forward. I got posting here as I had done my schooling here,” justified Ms Nirmala.

(Read: Despite CMs’ panels, staff fight on nativity)

Telangana-employees also objected to the allotment of another employee,  Harish Kumar Reddy, who is working as assistant section officer in the finance department. He had played an active role in anti-Telangana agitation.

“Officials placed the employee allotment list  on the website on Tuesday  and did not even give 24-hours to examine it. They had put the 12 noon deadline on Wednesday to submit our objections, if any. How is it possible to examine the service record of over 1,800 employees?” asked  Narender Rao, president of Telangana Secretariat Employees’ Association.

Association leader Padma Chary said that in the preliminary verification it was found that about 195 employees of Seemandhra region were allotted to Telangana-Secretariat against the norms.

“We have doubts about the certificates submitted by these employees. We got complaints that several Seemandhra employees secured fake schooling certificates from private schools located in Telangana-region. Why are the officials ignoring their domicile status and giving preference only to schooling certificates which is highly difficult to examine as the records date back decades?” Mr Padma Chary said.

Seemandhra secretariat Employees Forum president, Murali Krishna, meanwhile, denied the allegations made by Telangana-employees. “Nativity is being determined based on schooling and not on where they were born or where their parents or forefathers hailed from. If Telangana-employees claim that we submitted fake schooling certificates, let them prove it instead of making baseless charges." 

"This is only a provisional allotment to ensure that both the states function smoothly. The permanent allotment would be made by giving options to employees from both the regions to choose the state."