Hyderabad: Most IAS officers in Telangana state are simply just “outstanding”, according to the Annual Performance Reports of IAS officers filed by the state government with the Centre every year.
The appraisal reports of IAS/ IPS officers assume significance against the backdrop of the Centre sacking two IPS and one IAS officer serving in central positions, in the last three days in “public interest” for non-performance and corruption. The Centre has asked the states to take up similar, strict measures.
Rules set by the Centre’s Department of Personnel and Training mandates all states to file reviews of IAS officers each year.
But with almost all officers getting the “outstanding” grade for the past few years in the state, questions are being raised over the grading process. Many even claim the process has become a plain ritual.
No officer from Telangana gets poor tag
Almost no one is categorised as ‘satisfactory’ or ‘poor’, not even those facing corruption charges and CBI cases.
The Telangana state government has now decided to follow in the Centre’s footsteps and initiate action against non-performing officers.
Though dozens of officers in TS don’t file their Annual Immovable Property Returns as mandated by DoPT - some of them not for the past five years - they too are being given ‘outstanding’ grade.
An official source said, “There is no major scrutiny or verification of APRs at state government level when filing with the Centre. This has been the practice for the past few decades. Normally, this filing process is handled by the strong lobby of IAS officers alone, who take all precautions to see that no officer faces any trouble on account of APRs.This is the reason for almost all getting ‘outstanding’ grade.”
According to sources, there are about 130 IAS officers in the TS cadre and 115 have been graded as “outstanding”, 10 as “very good” and five as “good”. Not even a single one is “satisfactory” or “poor”.
