Govt takes another step forward on new districts

Hyderabad: The government is likely to freeze the number of districts at 24, including the existing 10 in the state. The district collectors have been asked to come up with detailed reports regarding buildings with infrastructure to house temporary collectorates, land available for construction of new collectorates and tentative list of employees available with each department.Chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao will hold another round of meeting with district collectors on July 5.
Chief secretary Rajiv Sharma held a marathon meeting with the district collectors on creation of new districts at the Secretariat on Monday. Sharma along with chief commissioner of land administration (CCLA) Raymond Peter and principal secretary (revenue) BR Meena reviewed the matter in detail.
Officials said that while there was consensus on many proposed districts such as Jagityal, Siddipet, Sanga Reddy and other towns, the state government is dilly-dallying on some new ones such as Vemulawada Rajanna district to be carved out from the existing Karimnagar and Shamshabad from the existing Ranga Reddy district. The chief minister has reportedly asked the chief secretary to consider Sircilla as district, but officials feel that it would become smaller with just eight to nine mandals.
Also, Sharma asked the collectors to get the resolutions passed by gram panchayats, where new mandals are being created to avoid any legal dispute and resentment from locals.
Panchayats would be given the option of continuing in the existing mandals or become part of new mandals. The government is contemplating creating 40 to 50 new mandals from the existing 460 in the state.
On the required staff, the collectors said that they would need about 1,400 to 1,600 employees for the proposed new districts. The staff would be adjusted from the existing employees in the respective districts.
"Rationalisation of departments would be done for employee distribution in the proposed districts. There are about 70 to 80 departments in each district. Now, some departments would be merged and work will be distributed," a senior official of the revenue department told TOI.
An empowered committee is being constituted with CCLA as its chairman, who will hold meetings with the heads of departments on the rationalisation of employees and their allocation to the proposed districts by the end of this month. The collectors have been asked to hold consultations with local peoples' representatives by June 30.