The summer with its heat and dust may be over for many, but the bureaucratic babudom in Telangana continues to sweat it out. The recent directive to ‘get out of your comfy air-conditioned officers and be seen in the field, on the ground,’ from Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has had several officers leave their plush offices and see what is happening on the ground in their departments’ work area. The diktat from the CM mandates that IAS officers not just go on the visits but also maintain a ‘tour diary’ details of which must be submitted to the Chief Secretary’s office by the 5th of every month. The diary must include specifics of locations visited, observations made, and actions taken, ensuring that the fieldwork is more than just a box-ticking exercise. “Field visits will be a critical factor in evaluating the performance of collectors,” Revanth declared, putting the IAS officers on high alert. Adding a twist to their already packed schedules, Revanth has also called for these visits to include both scheduled and surprise inspections. And for many IAS officers, the directive marks a significant shift from their usual routines, and the looming deadline for submitting the tour diaries has reportedly put them on tenterhooks. Looks like the days of bureaucrats enjoying the luxuries of office life without getting their boots dusty are over in Telangana, but whether this results in tangible improvements in governance or simply more paperwork remains to be seen.
ANAM’S SHARP TONGUE SCARES ALL
Telugu Desam spokesperson Anam Venkataramana Reddy’s sharp-tongued critique seems to have prompted a government U-turn, sending some bureaucrats into a tailspin and proving that his Nellore-flavoured rhetoric packs more punch than expected. The latest subject of Anam’s commentary is an IAS officer and former Nellore municipal commissioner D. Haritha, who found herself on a posting roller coaster — appointed as joint collector of Anantapur district one minute, and unceremoniously un-appointed the next. Not content with influencing just one career, Anam is learnt to have set his sights on bigger games. He accused former minister Botsa Satyanarayana and a cast of IAS officers, including Haritha and Vikas Marmat, of treating the Nellore Municipal Corporation like their personal piggy bank. According to Anam, these officials have been playing a high-stakes game of Monopoly with mortgage properties, but with real money at stake. While it appears Anam’s disapproval carries more weight than a government order these days, some bureaucrats are reportedly refreshing their social media feeds anxiously, waiting to see if their careers will be the next subject of Anam’s sharp tongue.
IAS BABU REPENTS RESIGNATION
Bureaucrats and controversies seldom do not go together. After all, everything they do usually comes under the lens, and such is the case with senior IAS officer Praveen Prakash in Andhra Pradesh who opted for VRS soon after the recent change of guard in the state despite the fact he was left with nearly seven years of service before reaching the age of superannuation. As he waited for a posting, and, according to whispers in the Secretariat corridors, was hoping for a plum posting that was not happening as quickly as he hoped for, Prakash put in his papers, a request that was accepted by the government with September 30 to be his last working day. But apparently, the officer now has had a change of heart and has sent a request to the government to take him back into the service claiming that he had opted for VRS in a hasty manner as he was under psychological pressure. Though he is making all efforts to come back to the service by trying to meet the top officials, there seems to be no positive response so far.
NAIDU UNFAZED BY ENEMY OFFICERS
Telugu Desam leaders are up in arms against Chief Minister and TD supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu for giving a collector’s post to an IAS officer and further important posts to other top babus who allegedly worked against the TD in the 2019 elections. Interestingly party spokesperson G.V. Reddy raised his voice against the continuation of those officials by Naidu. Though he has also said so on a vernacular TV channel, it remains to be seen if the political unhappiness over the role officials played in the previous regime will make any difference with Naidu focused on revamping the administration.
COP SHUFFLE UNNECESSARY SAYS POLITICO IN AP
Cleaning up is never easy as the Visakhapatnam commissioner of police Sankabrata Bagchi is learnt to have realised of late. In a bid to cleanse Visakhapatnam police system by shuffling inspector rank officials around, he is learnt to have prepared a list of 25 such officers, but the word got out through an internal intelligence network of these officials, who promptly sought help from a local politician who is believed to have the heft to call some shots in the police department. The politician, who wanted a ‘grip’ over the inspectors, is said to have called the commissioner and told him to halt his cleansing process, and instead, gave a list of his own as to who should be posted where. And that’s where things stand as of now.
HOSPITAL REQUESTS POLITICOS TO STEER CLEAR
Hospitals, unfortunately, can sometimes turn into venues for some free publicity for politicians, especially when they make a scene of visiting victims of some incident or the other. The recent case of three students from a hostel under the care of a private religious trust in Kailasapatnam village, in Kotavuratla mandal of Anakapalle district who lost their lives, following an alleged case of food poisoning, and several others admitted at the King George Hospital in Visakhapatnam, resulted in AP home minister Vangalapudi Anitha and several MLAs making a beeline to the hospital to convey their empathy and sympathy. But after several pictures of videos of these visits popping up on social media, the doctors have had enough and told the visiting politicos to stay away, and let them do their job of taking care of the patients, and the leaders rushing around the wards is not helping any.
Contributions from Aruna, L. Venkat Ram Reddy, K.M.P. Patnaik, V.S. Prasad, Md Ilyas, Sampat G. Samritan, Avinash P. Subramanyam