Telangana govt not to hire employees for new districts

Hyderabad: The hopes of employees and job aspirants of promotions and employment on account of creation of 17 new districts from Dasara have been dashed.

The TS government has decided not to  give promotions or go for fresh recruitment for the new districts. District collectors have been told to adjust the existing staff in the new districts.

The government had proposed promotions to existing staff and addition of 25,000 new jobs before creation of the new districts. However, it backtracked after it realised  that this would impose a heavy financial burden on the state exchequer due to salaries.

Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma made the government's decision clear in a meeting held with senior revenue officials recently, which was communicated to the collectors.

Following this, the collectors have started working on reallocation of existing staff to the new districts. The CS asked the collectors to rationalise staff allocation by merging insignificant departments with significant ones.

At present, there are 20 departments in collectorates and collectors were asked to downsize them to eight through mergers to see that the employees thus relieved can be accommodated in the new districts.

Telangana employees associations, while welcoming new districts, had maintained that this would be highly beneficial for employees as they would get promotions to work in new district headquarters and for job aspirants as 25,000 new jobs would be added at entry-level due to promotions to existing staff.

However, the government rejected the proposals on promotions and new jobs outright as it would put additional burden on salary bill, which has already crossed Rs 2,000 crore per month. Promotions would result in higher pay scales for existing staff and new recruitment would put additional salary burden on government.