Putting an end to several days of suspense over who will head several key departments in Andhra Pradesh Secretariat, the government issued orders appointing in-charges for them.
Forty four IAS officers of united State cadre were allotted to Telangana to be in place by the appointed day on June 2 and this left several departments without heads in the Andhra Pradesh Secretariat.
For instance, Shivashankar, who was Secretary, GAD (Political) and S.K. Joshi, Secretary, Municipal Administration and Urban Development and Energy were among these 44 IAS officers allotted to Telangana.
In their place, the Chief Secretary of AP, I.Y.R. Krishna Rao, on Wednesday appointed 24 IAS officers including Rajeshwar Tiwari, Principal Secretary, School Education, as in-charge Secretary, GAD (Political). Similarly, Ajay Jain, Commissioner, Technical Education, has been given the additional charge of Energy until further orders.
The following is the list of some officers who were given additional charge: S.P.Tucker- Rural Development, Shekhar Prasad Singh- Registration and Stamps, Anil Chandra Punetha- Commercial Taxes, D. Sambasiva Rao- MA&UD, K.S. Jawahar Reddy- Panchayat Raj and RD, L. Premachandra Reddy- Finance, Vani Prasad- Backward Classes Welfare.
Till now, there was some sort of confusion in the AP Secretariat with no in-charge heads in various key departments after provisional allotment of bureaucrats to serve Telangana government from June 2.
For apart from Mr. Joshi, Nagi Reddy and Raymond Peter heading Irrigation and Rural Development were allotted to Telangana Secretariat. Their subordinate officers thus had no clue about whom they should mark the files to.
Sources said that the Chief Secretary Krishna Rao, who assumed charge on June 2, completed the exercise of bringing the departments without heads under the charge of AP bureaucrats so that all the departments would be functional by the time the Chief Minister-designate N. Chandrababu Naidu swears-in on June 8.
However, the shifting of section officers, staff allotted to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to their designated blocks and floors has still not started on a full scale. “We are all packed to go. But the rooms assigned to us are not yet vacated by the employees allotted to the Telangana Secretariat,” said a Seemandhra section officer, adding by Saturday, they are confident that the shifting would be completed.
In certain departments, the heads of the cadre of Special Chief Secretary, Principal Secretary were moved to the AP Secretariat blocks. However, with only bare minimum furniture at their disposal, intercom and other facilities were still not in place and with their department staff not yet moved in, they have only skeletal structure at present.
