Officials of the department of personnel, public grievances and pensions (DoPT) headed by retired IAS officer CR Kamalnathan held preliminary discussions with chief secretary PK Mohanty here on Thursday on the allocation of state-level employees to the new states of Telangana and the residuary Andhra Pradesh.
DoPT joint secretary Archana Varma, director state reorganisation division Kimbuong Kipgen, under-secretary Sarangadhar Nayak and other officials called on the chief secretary along with Kamalnathan.
The Kamalnathan committee was constituted to allocate the state-level officers working in the state government, excluding All India Service (AIS) officers. The allocation of AIS will be decided by another committee.
“This is a preliminary round of talks on how to apply the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 in allocating the state-level officers,” an officer told Express after the meeting.
According to preliminary estimates, the sanctioned strength of state-level officers is around 84,000 and the employees to be allocated is around 56,000. However, the exact number could be arrived after the 15 sub-committees, constituted for division process, submitted their reports on assets, liabilities and cadre strength. They would likely to submit their reports by the end of March. The final report would submitted to Kamalanathan committee which will decide the matter as per the guidelines of the central government committees, sources said.
“DoPT officials today discussed the reorganisation modalities, allocation of employees and the special situations in Andhra Pradesh and also the experience of division process in three other states,” the sources said.
The cadre strength of all departments is available with the finance department. But, the accurate figures can be arrived at only after the sub-committees submit their reports. The 84,000 state-level employees include those in the police department.
The SR division of the DOPT is entrusted with the responsibility of allocation of the state government employees of state cadre who have all state transfer liability.
“The Reorganisation Act provides only for the brief outlines and fundamental principles of reorganisation. So, it is necessary to work out the modalities and frame the detailed guidelines to carry out the reorganisation process. That is why the Kamalnathan committee was constituted,” the sources explained.
The DoPT says that the broad principle of allocation of state-cadre employees which, inter alia, includes allocation first by ‘option’, followed by ‘domicile’ (home district) and lastly by inclusion of ‘junior most’ personnel in the reverse order of seniority.
If the number of posts allocated to a successor state is more than the total number of ‘optees’ and ‘domicile’ (home district), in order to fill the balance posts, the employees lower down in the seniority position in the cadre are considered for allocation even against their options.
Option, once exercised by an employee, is not reversible. Keeping in view the resentment expressed by the employees who were allocated on domicile and juniority basis against their willingness, several exceptions were made to the guidelines to facilitate certain class of employees to be allocated to the states of their option, the DoPT sources said.
Broad Principles of Allocation
■ The 84,000 state-level employees include those in the police department.
■ The SR division of DiPT to deal with allocation of state govt employees of state cadre who have state transfer liability.
■ The broad principles of allocation include allocation first by ‘option’, followed by ‘domicile’ (home district) and lastly by inclusion of ‘junior most’ personnel in the reverse order of seniority.
■ If the number of posts allocated to a successor state is more than the total number of ‘optees’ and ‘domicile’ (home dist), in order to fill the balance posts, the employees lower down in the seniority position in the cadre are considered for allocation even against their options.
■ Option, once exercised by an employee, is not reversible.