No Dasara holidays for state government staff

Hyderabad: In an unprecedented move, the Telangana government cancelled Dasara holidays for revenue, general administration, transport, municipal administration and home departments to prepare for the launch of new districts on October 11. The staff in these departments have been asked to work on festival days and to avail compensatory leave at a later date.

This decision was taken by the state cabinet that met here on Friday under the chairmanship of chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.

The cabinet also approved the plan for reorganisation of districts. The final contours of reorganized Telangana will become clear once the government decides on the report submitted by the high-power committee headed by Rajya Sabha MP K Kesava Rao. On Friday , the committee met the chief minister and submitted its report on demands for creating Janagaon, Gadwal, Siricilla and Asifabad districts. "The cabinet cleared the proposal on district reorganisation. The new districts will start functioning from Dasara. The number of districts is not yet finalised as the highpower committee submitted its report today. But there will be more than 27 districts," said deputy chief minister Kadiam Srihari, who briefed the media on the cabinet meeting. The government already issued a draft notification for 27 districts and is expected to issue final notification on October 11. The cabinet cleared the proposal to allow the new districts' administrations to re cruit staff according to their requirement. An ordinance will be later issued by the Governor ESL Narasimhan to increase number of districts, revenue divisions and mandals.

The cabinet also decided to set up a town planning tribunal to crackdown on illegal constructions in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits. To keep the city free from flooding, the state government also decided to remove all illegal constructions built on lake and tank beds in the state. The three-hour cabinet meeting also approved an important amendment to the Backward Classes Act, 1993 paving way for setting up a BC Commission in the state as part of the TRS government's plans to review some of the categories in the backward classes to fulfil its poll promise of adding and upgrading some castes.

The cabinet meeting also gave its approval for creation of four new police commissionerates at Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Siddipet and Ramagundam. Accordingly , the home department has been asked to allot police officers to these new commisionerates.

Fulfilling its poll promise to withdraw vehicle tax for the auto-rickshaws, the TRS government approved a proposal to scrap tax on tractors and autos. The proposals was approved by the cabinet on Friday .This is expected to benefit more than 10 lakh people in the state. The cabinet decided to set up 119 schools exclusively for students from backward classes and 71 from minorities. The cabinet also cleared the proposal to set up 90 minority residential schools across the state from next academic year.

The state cabinet cleared a proposal to bring Mission Bhagiratha into the purview of salaries and pensions fund so that the staff will get all benefits in line with the government employees. The cabinet also cleared the proposal to allot 15 acres to Hetero Drugs to set up a cancer hospital at Serilingampalli.

The cabinet decided to set up 92 new police stations in line with the new revenue divisions and mandals that are coming into existence from October 11. It was also approved to have 28 new police circles and 23 sub-divisions in the police department. The cabinet renamed mandal revenue officers (MRO) as tehsildars and directed all departments to address them with new name.

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