The employees of Telangana government are eagerly awaiting the response of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to proposals for transferring all of them who have put in five years of service at a particular station.
If Mr. Rao gave the nod to the proposals which reached him on Wednesday, the process of shifting up to 35,000 staff which would mean giving new postings to double the number could be initiated in a day or two, sources said.
They added that it was not clear whether teachers who constituted almost 1.6 lakh out of the total strength of 3.05 lakh would also be included in the process because teacher transfers were last taken up in 2015.
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The transfer of teachers taken up then led to a major fiasco owing to corruption charges. It had led to the suspension of district education officers of Warangal, Medak and Mahabubnagar.
Counselling
So, Mr. Rao had asked that strict guidelines be framed for the purpose and the entire process be taken up by counselling to give no scope for influence.
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The general transfer of employees had not taken place for seven years which was a strong reason for the government to propose the same this time.
It was felt that if the employees continued in the posts at the same station for a long time they would get a grip on political leadership and public which would result in misuse of power.
A major concern for the government in taking up transfers is deployment of 20,000 employees who are working on order-to-serve in 21 new districts.
New districts
They have to be given postings on the basis of their options and nativity. Given the option, it was natural to expect the employees to prefer their erstwhile districts to preserve their seniority. There would be no takers for posts in the new districts. Also, the government was aware of the danger of employees not opting for interior areas where the administration was handled by skeleton staff.
This was one reason why Mr. Rao was wary of transfers as it could paralyse the administration.
If transfers became inevitable, he insisted that it should be done only by counselling to maintain transparency.
Employees other than teachers were never transferred by counselling in the past.
The transfers will have to be taken up with district, zone and State as units for jobs falling within their ambit. If the Government agreed, the process would have to be completed within a fortnight well before the commencement of the new academic year.