Telangana, Andhra Pradesh drag feet on All India Service division

Hyderabad: The Telangana and Andhra Pradesh government are dragging their feet on distribution of All India Service officers.

Both the states, which accused the Centre, faulting it for the delay in allotment of AIS officers all these days, are now blocking the appointment process themselves by not issuing relieving letters to some officers of their choice. Both the states are keen on retaining some key officials and have engaged in a battle of one upmanship to retain them by flouting norms.

Read: Nativity issue to rock distribution of staff between both states

The Centre appointed Prathyush Sinha committee had issued the list of allottees to both  the states on December 26, 2014 after seven months of receiving objections, complaints raised by both the governments and some officers questioning their allotment to a particular state.

The Centre had made it clear that the allotted officers have to report to the respective states immediately. Though 15 days have passed since then, the AP government is yet to relieve 7 IAS officers who are allotted to TS, while the Telangana is yet to relieve 9 IAS officers allotted to Andhra Pradesh.

Senior IAS officers Ajay Jain, Siddharth Jain and J.S.V. Prasad are yet to be relieved by AP, while B.P. Acharya, Somesh Kumar, Poonam Malakondaiah, Vikas Raj, K. Amrapali, Ronald Ross, J.S. Ranjan, Harinarayana etc are yet to relieved by Telangana. With this, they continue to serve the existing states. The situation of 44 IAS officers who were relieved by AP government last Sunday is even worse as the TS government is yet to give postings for them.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is yet to give his approval to give postings for these officers though the list was finalised by chief secretary Dr Rajiv Sharma and special secretary to CM, Narsing Rao.

They submitted the postings list to CM on Wednesday, but the CM left for Warangal tour on Thursday and is expected to be back on Sunday.

Sources said the CM is not happy with the postings and is keen on making some changes and the postings are expected to be given only after Sankranti. Senior IAS officers are angry with both the governments for not issuing relieving orders and giving fresh postings even after the Centre sent the list of allottees two weeks ago.