Telangana Employees Affected by GO 317 Await Speedy Resolution

Hyderabad: With nativity as the leitmotif for Telangana agitation given a go by while issuing GO 317, the employees who were left aggrieved are biding their time for an early resolution of their grievances.

The employee unions peg the number of those affected by GO 317 at around 10,000.

“The unilateral process brought all senior employees to the relatively developed towns, while youngsters were sent to rural areas. There are senior employees who wish to go to areas like Gadwal and Doultabad as they hail from there and we are not averse to working in backward rural hinterlands. When we met minister Danasari Seethakka, she said that younger employees from her Mulugu constituency have to be transferred so that vacancies arise there,” said T. Vijay Kumar, chairman, GO 317 victim employees and teachers JAC.

The employee unions aver the situation can be largely remedied by adjusting employees in posts which arise owing to retirements from March.

“Around 8,000 employees retire each year for the next five years and up to 45,000 vacancies are set to arise. Of the 22,000 teacher posts that can be filled, the government is recruiting only 11,062,” said Boina Nageshwar Rao, working president of the JAC.

Answering queries by Deccan Chronicle, minister D. Sridhar Babu, a member of the cabinet sub-committee formed to look into the issue, said, “We are seeing the pros and cons of GO 317. It can’t be amended without due diligence. Any order given by us has to stand legal scrutiny. We are sympathetic to the problems faced by employees.”

He added, “The GO itself was not followed strictly. Issues of employees who were allotted to different zones by mistake or knowingly sent to another zone can be brought back to their zone. This does not need any legal ratification.”

Prof. Kodandaram, president, TJS (Telangana Jana Samithi) said, “The BRS government left a fixed percentage of jobs vacant to be filled in future phases of recruitment when the districts were reorganized. Of the total working strength in the district they arrived at what is called allocable strength which is the number of employees to be allocated to the district. Allocable strength is lesser than total strength.”

The root cause of the problem is owing to difference in recruitment within the erstwhile districts. For example more employees were recruited from Siddipet and Medak had lesser representation. So Medak had more vacancies but for future recruitment purposes they kept vacancies in Siddipet also. These employees have to be sent to their district now. Those currently working non-locally have to be sent to their districts, he said.

With transfers and promotions, vacancies will arise. Some areas are bound to have more vacancies because of differences in educational levels within the erstwhile districts. After transfers happened vacancies have arisen and some employees can be adjusted. The problem is more pronounced in districts like Siddipet, Warangal and Rangareddy.