K Chandrasekhar Rao cracks whip on officials

Hyderabad: Decisions taken by Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will be implemented in a week, going by the latest memo issued by Chief Secretary S.P. Singh.

Undue delay on the part of bureaucrats in taking action on decisions made by the Chief Minister forced the Chief Secreta-ry to issue the memo to all secretaries seeking action in a week after Mr Rao had taken a decision. The memo said it had come to the notice of the Chief Minister that some depar-tments were not issuing orders immediately after he took decisions.

As per secretariat instr-uctions, it was the duty of the secretary to ensure that orders were issued within a week except in cases where they had to be circulated to the other departments before issue of orders and that the minister concerned is informed of the progress of the case. Even in cases involving inter-departmental consultations, orders should be issued in 15 days, the memo said.

In spite of these instructions, it had been brought to the notice of the Chief Minister that in some cases there was considerable delay even after the files were approved in circulation.

He said when the Chief Minister gave a directive to issue orders in a particular case and circulate the file, the department concerned should be aware of the urgency and issue orders as expeditiously as possible getting necessary details over telephone or through email.

If there was any legal/financial hurdle, the officer concerned at the CMO should be informed immediately.

According to the Chief Secretary, there was lack of seriousness on the part of heads of departments at the Secretariat, Comm-issinerates and directorates. 

He directed all Special Chief Secretaries, Princ-ipal Secretaries and secretaries of departments to ensure that as soon as orders in circulation were passed, action should be taken immediately.

SK Joshi may get CS post
A circle close to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao was reportedly rallying for irrigation department Special Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi to be made Chief Secretary on retirement of S.P. Singh on January 31, 2018.

Mr Joshi belongs to the 1984 batch. Besides Mr Singh, there are three other Special Chief Secretaries of the 1983 batch in the Telan-gana cadre. B.P. Acha-rya is the seniormost of them. Binay Kumar was on Central deputation and empanelled as secretary in the Central service. Rajeev Ranjan Acharya is to retire in four months.

Going by seniority Mr Acharya was eligible to take over from Singh. But the circle close to CM was said to be in favour of Mr Joshi. IAS circles said as per the plan, Acharya was moved out from the Sec-retariat and transferred from planning department to be posted as DG of MCR HRD Institute.

They said Kumar was unlikely to return to State service. If the government wanted to make Joshi CS it would have to bypass three officers seniors to him.