Hyderabad: State Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday reiterated that his government has taken up the most daring administrative reforms to bring public administration closer to the people, and succeeded too. At the same time, he said the redistribution of administrative departments was also undertaken to create new administrative units,
Taking part in the state formation day celebrations here, he said before October 2016, there were 10 districts in Telangana having an average population of over 35 lakhs. This made administration difficult. Added to that in some places, it used to be 200 to 250 km to reach the district headquarters and offices. As a result, the officials of the district centers had to travel to villages and people also faced many difficulties to go to the district headquarters.
Even though the number of families living in the district was 10 lakhs, this made it difficult for the authorities to know the ground situation in the villages, which made it extremely difficult for the officials to concentrate on the problems of the people in far-flung villages in the districts.
Hence, he said, to overcome these problems his government has created as many as 23 new districts under the Districts Reorganization Act-1974, increasing the number of districts from 10 to 33. “This has helped to enhance the efficient function of government,” he pointed out.
The new districts were launched on October 1, 2016. It increased the number of revenue divisions from 43 to 74, manuals from 459 to 612, and gram panchayats from 12,769.
Chief Minister reiterated that the initiative not only made administration more effective for the people living in all these districts.
He further explained that His government has also formed new departments which made it more convenient for the people to reach district headquarters within an hour.
“Implementation of development and welfare programs and monitoring them also made it easier for the authorities. Officials are getting a full understanding of local conditions, resources, peculiarities, people’s needs, and social conditions,” he said and added, “identifying local resources and designing development models much easier.”
Some of the programs implemented by the central government are also taken up by the district unit itself. This will benefit states with more districts.
Some Central government offices are located in district Centers. Since there are only two to three lakh families under the jurisdiction of each district collector, it is possible to undertake poverty alleviation programs to the doorsteps of people in much less time.
That apart, he said there are agencies and forest areas in some parts of the state, which will be easier for the authorities to do special programs for forest protection and tribals. “There are special programs for SCs, where the SC population in such cases, and they are being done according to the needs of the area,” he said.
The CM also said this had also helped to focus more on Muslims and other minorities. Special measures are being taken to balance the environment in the districts where the forest percentage is low. “With enthusiastic young collectors being assigned to new districts, the development programs are moving at a fast pace. Interestingly, this effective and convenient administration has also reduced Crime and put it under wraps as police can reach the crime scene much faster.
