‘Order to serve’ still in force for staff

Nearly one and a half years after reorganisation of districts, the ‘order to serve’ issued by the State government to staff deployed in 21 new districts continues as they have not been allotted to permanent posts.

The uncertainty about their future, which issue was raised at the conference of employees here on March 25, was among several issues linked to employees that were discussed at a meeting of the Principal Finance Secretary with his colleagues in the department on Friday.

Sources said 60% of 3.5 lakh employees in the State were working on ‘order to serve’ in different districts. They did not set up permanent residence at the places of their posting as they were not sure which district they would be allotted to.

Senior officials met to discuss the scope of the government to resolve the 18 demands that were raised at the conference of employees. The conference had warned that the employees would go on agitational path if the issues were not resolved by April-end.

The demands also included regularisation of contract employees and removal of outsourcing agencies that engaged staff at the service of the government. There were about 28,000 contract employees whose services were supposed to be regularised as per a Government Order in February 2016 but it was not taken up in view of court cases.

The proposal was to regularise about 3,700 lecturers of junior colleges, 926 degree colleges, 450 polytechnics and 750 teachers of residential institutions.

There were 35,000 outsourced employees who also demanded regularisation of services but the government refused to concede their demand because they were engaged by private agencies which paid their remuneration.

The Telangana government had amended the legislation on public employment which allowed it to regularise the services of persons appointed on contract basis against the sanctioned posts on condition that there were enough posts in departments where they should be considered. Regularisation may be considered only in respect of personnel working as on June 2, 2014, the date of formation of the State.

The employees are also demanding lifting of ban on transfer of employees which has been in vogue since 2013.