New districts bring Telangana a Rs 1,300 crore windfall

Hyderabad: The creation of new districts from Dasara would financially benefit Telangana to the tune of nearly Rs 1,300 crore. The Centre had on July 20 issued a gazette notifying nine existing districts, barring Hyderabad, as backward areas and announced a grant of Rs 50 crore each towards Backward Regions Grant Fund amounting to a total of Rs 450 crore.

With the creation of new districts, the total number of backward districts in TS  will jump to 26 of the total 27 (except Hyderabad) and the state government can claim Rs 1,300 crore grant. The finance department has already started drafting proposals to claim BRGF grant for 26 backward districts after Dasara.

The government is hopeful of securing another Rs 5,000 crore for district-specific schemes being implemented by the Centre with the creation of new districts.

The government is learnt to have made a strategic move by not disturbing the existing Hyderabad district, classified as a developed district by the Centre, and confined itself to reorganising the other nine districts.

Any addition of revenue divisions and mandals in neighbouring districts like Ranga Reddy, Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar and Medak would have created technical problems for those districts to be eligible for the Centre’s grants.

Finance minister Etela Rajender said, “We have thoroughly studied the norms to claim Central grants under BRGF. It was found that all the 17 new districts qualify for these grants. While we got Rs 450 crore during the last two years, this would now increase to Rs 1,300 crore.”

Ban on transfers to continue
Contrary to expectations of the employees, the TS government will continue with the ban on their transfer at all levels even as the process of creation of new districts goes on. TS employees have been desperately waiting for transfers for over two years now as the government did not take up the process since the formation of the state in June, 2014.

However, rumours are spreading like wildfire in the Secretariat during the last week that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had given the nod to take up general transfer of employees this month to meet the needs of new districts.

With this, lobbyists, claiming to be close to the CM, ministers, MPs, MLAs, officials etc., have entered the scene and have started luring the employees that they would ensure their transfer to the place of their choice if they pay anything from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.

The government took a serious view of the issue and issued a clarification on Saturday stating that the ban on transfer of employees would continue.
Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma issued a memo in this regard on Saturday.

“The ban on transfer of employees was imposed by the government in undivided AP in May 2013 and the TS government reiterates these orders banning transfers in state at all levels.” He directed all the departments in the Secretariat, heads of departments and district collectors to follow these orders scrupulously.