KCR instruct officials to regularise JPSs

 Hyderabad: A week after junior panchayat secretaries (JPSs) withdrew their strike and rejoined duties following an assurance by the state government that their services will be regularised, Chief Minister K. Chandraskhekar Rao on Monday issued directions to officials to initiate the process to regularise JPSs.

The Chief Minister held a review meeting with officials at the Secretariat on Monday to resolve the long-pending demand of JPSs. He directed panchayat raj department principal secretary Sandeep Kumar Sultania to finalise the guidelines for regularisation of JPSs.

Chandrashekar Rao asked officials to form committees at district-level to be headed by district collectors to assess the performance of JPSs who were appointed in 2019 to determine who was eligible for regularisation. The committee will have additional collector (local bodies), district forest officer, district SP or DCP as members.

The regularisation proposals sent by district committees will be examined by state-level committee headed by prinicipal secretary of panchayat raj department. The state-level committee will then submit the report to Chief Secretary based on which the state government will regularise the services of eligible JPSs.

In some gram panchayats, district collectors had appointed JPSs on outsourcing basis. The Chief Minister asked officials to begin the process of filing those posts on a regular basis after the regularisation of existing JPSs concludes.