KCR wants state civil services on war-footing

HYDERABAD: Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who in his election campaign meetings spoke of bringing in administrative reforms in the revenue and municipal wings, on Friday asked senior officials to take measures for the creation of the Telangana Administrative Service (TAS) on the lines of the Indian Administrative Service at the Centre.
As of now, the state has its own top service Group I cadre and there has been a demand from the Group I Officers’ Association to create TAS as officers belonging to other departments can get an opportunity to work as collector and joint collectors after being conferred IAS rank. As of now, officers belonging to the revenue department get the lion’s share of conferred IAS/IPS appointments.

Interestingly, the state government had appointed a committee to look into the proposal but there has been no progress on the proposal. The state government has now mooted the proposal of TAS mainly to overcome the IAS officers’ scarcity, especially after creation of new districts. Many departments do not have heads with IAS officer and are being managed with incharges. KCR, who held a review meeting with ministers and officials on Friday, said there was a need to bring in new Revenue Act, Municipal Act and Telangana Urban Policy for corruption free and hassle-free services to the people.

It may be recalled the chief minister expressed unhappiness over the functioning of the revenue department, especially corruption in the tehsildar offices. “The Telangana Urban Policy need to be drafted keeping in view of growing and future needs of urban areas. Under district collector or district administrative officer, another office of additional collector or additional district administrative officer should be created to assist the collector,” Chandrasekhar Rao said. He also said there should be separate urban policy for Greater Hyderabad and HMDA.

He said people should get services without bribing the officials and staffers at revenue offices, municipalities and village panchayats. New districts, revenue divisions and mandals were created for the benefit of the people.

The CM said he had been receiving complaints from the people on largescale corruption. “Why should the state government be cursed by the people for the fault of some staffers? Services in the departments such as revenue, registration, municipalities and village panchayats should be done without paying bribes,” he said.