Telangana IAS officials' dreams to study abroad end

Hyderabad: The Telangana state government has jolted a dozen or so IAS officers out of their dreams of getting “foreign education”.

A dozen IAS officers had applied for study leave to pursue higher education and training opportunities abroad for duration ranging from six months to 2 years. However, the government rejected these applications, citing shortage of IAS officers in the state.

With the increase in districts from 10 to 31, the government is already facing severe shortage of IAS officers.

The applications had been submitted to Chief Secretary S.P. Singh for approval, who then referred the issue to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

Sources in Chief Minister's Office said the CM has rejected the applications saying that the government cannot afford to grant study leave to 12 IAS officers under the present circumstances as the state was already grappling with the shortage of IAS officers after the creation of new districts last October.

The government could not find adequate senior IAS officers to appoint them as collectors for 21 new districts.

Due to this, it appointed joint collectors of old districts as collectors besides appointing junior IAS officers in various departments as collectors.

The state government made a special representation to Centre to increase IAS cadre strength of state in accordance with the increase in number of districts. However, the Centre is yet to approve the request, four months on.

“Already, each IAS officer is handling three to four departments on an average. If any officer goes on leave, others are being given additional charge of those departments. With this, some IAS officers are forced to handle six to eight departments. This is hurting the administration and resulting in huge pendency of files,” said sources.

The sources said that at this stage, if 12 officers were to be given study leave for up to two years, it would be very difficult for the government to run the administration.