The State government would write to the Election Commission asking it to spare senior IAS officers from election duty as all department heads were immersed in the State bifurcation works.
The Election Commission wanted a list of 100 IAS officers to be deputed as election observers. The State sent 50 names, but requested the EC to exempt all of them or take only 25 officers below secretary rank in view of the ongoing bifurcation work that has to be completed on a war-footing.
Chief Secretary P.K. Mohanty disclosed this in a meeting here on Wednesday with all the secretaries of government departments entrusted with compiling information related to employees, assets and liabilities, projects, contracts etc.
Apex panel formedThe Chief Secretary constituted an apex committee and 15 sectoral committees on March 1 to submit department-wise reports to the Centre to enable it to apportion State, All India cadre officers, assets and liabilities between the two successor States well before the appointed day of June 2.
In the first review meeting with the committees, Mr. Mohanty said that preparing files inventory and copies of lakhs of files involving crores of pages was a challenging task, but there was no choice. However, he said the department secretaries could take a call on important files and make copies, whether in digital or physical form.
While original files would go to the archives, files related to Telangana and Seemandhra would go to the respective States and common files related to policy decisions, land, finance and service matters would go to both the States.
Government prepares databaseThe government has already prepared a database of all regular, contract, outsourced, grant-in-aid and other categories of employees. Of 11.4 lakh employees paid by the government, 7.3 lakh were regular employees and they submitted bio-data, district, zonal and multi-zonal cadre details.
However, 17 per cent of other categories of employees were yet to provide details and the government has decided to withhold their salary for March if they failed to furnish the data.
After files, the next priority for all the departments would be to make inventory of fixed and movable assets (computers, phones, vehicles, furniture etc.,).
Two Central panelsThe two Central committees, one for State cadre and the other for All India cadre officers, would distribute officers between the two States after evolving principles and criteria. “State’s responsibility is only to provide the employees’ data. The Kamalanathan Committee is responsible for distribution of State cadre. The committee for All India cadre distribution is yet to be constituted,” an official said.
