With June 2 just a few days away, the process of allotting State cadre posts to the two successor States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh is almost complete. But the mood has turned emotional and bitter for government employees on both sides of the divide.
Though employees of two Secretariats, directorates and corporations will continue to serve in Hyderabad post bifurcation, Seemandhra employees say in the end they would have to move out of Hyderabad, a place they have considered their home for decades. “We built our homes here. Our children are born here and are now in crucial phase of education. If our CM decides to shift the Secretariat in the next few months, we have to leave our families behind and move,” said a section officer in the Secretariat.
Telangana employees, on the other hand, have turned restive with the temporary allotment process. As the number of Telangana employees is more than the posts that will be available in some departments after the bifurcation, several Seemandhra employees, based on their ‘local status’, have been asked to serve the Telangana government while some Telangana employees have been allotted to the Andhra government.
Citing the example of 193 Seemandhra employees whose local status is questionable, Telangana employee unions fear that it will defeat the very purpose of bifurcation. They argue that the injustice meted out to the people of Telangana in recruitments and the violation of ‘Six Point Formula’ provided a fillip to the Statehood agitation.
Their demand to make nativity (place of birth) the sole criterion for allotting employees between the two States has become vociferous and has found resonance with Telangana Chief Minister-designate K. Chandrasekhara Rao, who took up the issue with the Governor. All Telangana employees should be allotted to the State and if required supernumerary posts should be created, they say.
