Bringing relief to hundreds of government employees of local and State cadres of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, both the States jointly issued guidelines for inter-State transfer of government employees.
After the allocation of State government employees based on their nativity and seniority, representations came from local cadre and State cadre employees for transfer to the State where their spouses were working, or for mutual transfers on grounds of local candidature etc., to the State to which they belong.
The AP State Reorganisation Act, 2014, as per its Section 77, mandated that the employees of local, district, zonal and multi zonal cadres who fall entirely in one of the successor States of AP or Telangana were deemed to be allotted to that State. Thus, to facilitate inter-State transfers on spousal and mutual transfer grounds, a committee was constituted in August 2016 to evolve guidelines. The guidelines were accepted by both the State governments.
The government employees seeking inter-State transfer have to apply to the head of the department concerned through the proper channel within a month from the date of issue of guidelines (August 7, 2017). The administrative department will process the application and issue orders as per the recommended procedure by the committee within two months. Other than the spousal and mutual transfers, inter-State transfers on personal and medical grounds would not be entertained, according to the guidelines.
Significantly, employees transferred on request would be assigned to the last rank next to the last regular candidate in the new State on the lines of inter local cadre transfers under the provisions of the Presidential Order. The employee should also forego seniority in the existing State.
The AP and TS governments also made it clear that the inter-State transfers were permissible only once in the entire service of the employee. There should also be a clear vacancy to consider the inter-State transfer. On transfer to a State, the local cadre or State cadre employee will be allotted to the district or zone to which he is local as per the provisions of Presidential Order, subject to availability of a clear vacancy in the said district or zone or to any district or zone based on administrative need.
In the case of request transfer on spouse grounds, only one spouse will be transferred to the other State where the spouse is working on regular basis in the State government. Also one of the spouses must be local to the State to which transfer is sought. The same condition is also applicable to transfers on mutual basis and such transfers are restricted to State government employees only.
The guidelines said that the employee could be asked to join any post that the government offered so long as it was in the same pay scale. In respect of teachers, inter-State transfers are permitted only between the same managements and the same category/subject in case of mutual transfers.
