The functioning of the government in two core sectors — rural development and tribal welfare — is badly hit due to a shortfall in the allotment of IAS officers to the state cadre. The state, according to the Union minister of state for personnel V. Narayanasamy, is short of 92 officers. A majority of them are at the entry level. The Centre is not entertaining the state’s request to increase the cadre strength as well as allotment of regular recruits every year.
The number of bureaucrats at the entry level in the Regular Recruit category has drastically come down in the last decade and in years like 2007 and 2008, the total number, both regular recruit and promotion from state service put together, was as low as two.
“Earlier, we used to have young officers in all the Integrated Tribal Development Agencies (ITDA) and District Rural Development Authorities (DRDA) for effective implementation of government schemes,” said former chief secretary and vigilance commissioner S.V. Prasad. At present, there are IAS officers for only three ITDAs out of eight and a lone IAS officer for the Warangal DRDA. Though the state has been asking for an increase in cadre strength by 10-15 for the past few years, the Centre is allotting not more than four to five officers. Recently, the Centre agreed to increase the cadre strength from 347 to 374, sources said.
Poor cadre management is also adding to the problem as was evident from the top brass of the administration posting IAS officers in places where they were not required. “For instance, junior officers are put in commercial taxes, municipal bodies and power utilities which can be handled by the department itself,” a bureaucrat pointed out.
At the senior level too, the top brass reserves posts in organisations, like the state archives and the human resource development institute, to punish officers whom they don’t like while several posts in industries, agriculture or welfare are reserved for IAS officers to oblige their request to remain in state headquarters.