Even one year after the Election Commission of India sanctioned hundreds of posts at various levels to strengthen the Office of the Chief Electoral Officer in all the States across the country, the successor States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are yet to take steps for filling the posts.
This should have been a priority issue as at one go it would have given employment to a few hundreds of persons in various categories of posts as data entry operators, programmer and lower division clerk at not a significant cost as Centre would bear half of the salary bill.
For instance Telangana will have 636 data entry operators at the constituency and mandal level and A.P. will have 954 such posts through direct recruitment or outsourcing by Collectors. In addition, Telangana and A.P. will get 119 and 175 exclusive Deputy Tehsildar posts as mandated by the Commission. However, it is for the Revenue Department either to fill those posts by promotion or create separate posts.
At the office of the CEO, the Commission mandated permanent staff for non-election period and during election period it gave permission to augment the permanent staff by inducting officials on deputation basis or by outsourcing at various levels subject to approval of Finance Department .
The Election Commission in a letter dated March 4, 2014 issued instructions to the combined State CEO for further strengthening or modifying the organisation at different levels.
As the State was under the President rule, the Governor decided that it should be left to the Chief Ministers of the successor States. In the last one year, Telangana government showed some initiative in circulating the file and getting Finance Department clearance though the Cabinet is yet to give its approval. But in Andhra Pradesh, the file is still in process, sources added.
Office of the CEO would have one additional CEO and two posts each of joint, deputy and assistant CEOs to handle different functional responsibilities.
The Commission also mandated that in Telangana, CEO’s office will have four sections and Office of AP CEO will have six sections based on the number of parliamentary constituencies. While Telangana CEO office should have 65 subordinate posts, that of AP should have 87 such posts.
