Bureaucrats mulling their moves

All-India service officers are given a choice as to which side they would like to go

Now that the 29 State of India, Telangana, is almost certain to be carved out of Andhra Pradesh, and is just a signature away, bureaucrats on both the sides (Telangana and Seemandhra) appear to be in a predicament. It has become a cause for worry, especially for the officers who are in their mid-career. According to the general procedure the all-India service officers are given a choice as to which side they would like to go. It happened so when Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal were carved out. But this also created a huge problem for the States as most of the senior officers preferred to stay back with the capital in the residual State and only a few sought transfer to the new State and the new capital. The governments had to then make ad-hoc transfers for which it even resorted to the lottery system.

Hectic lobbying

But in the case of the State, the existing capital falls under the new State and a new capital is to be formed in the residual State. And it is believed that hectic lobbying has already begun in power corridors to seek a posting in Hyderabad. “Everybody wants to serve in Hyderabad,” says an IAS officer.

The bureaucratic fraternity is divided based on seniority. The officers pre-1990 batch are believed to be lobbying hard for finishing their tenure in Hyderabad as by the time the new capital comes up in Seemandhra, most of them would have superannuated.

For the new batch of IAS officers, post-2010, the problem is the other way round, as most of them are in their field tenure period and the automatic preference would be for a posting in Seemandhra as urban conglomerates are more in Seemandhra than in the Telangana region.

“You have a number of cities such as Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Guntur, Tirupati and Nellore. And it would be a dream for young officers to serve there rather than in Telangana region,” said a senior officer.

But the major problem lies with the middle-level officers who have joined service after 1999. They would have completed their field tenure and a majority of them are posted in Hyderabad. They find themselves in the quandary.

There will not be a major problem for the Group-I or Group-II services as they will go by the zonal system but the government will face a problem relocating the all India service officers, especially from the IAS and IPS streams, said an officer.