AP "Babus" have a field day without work

Desaraju Surya
HYDERABAD: Sitting in his Hyderabad office, a mid-level Indian Administrative Service officer in Andhra Pradesh was “busy” working on his computer. His Facebook account was open and he was quite seriously “posting” messages to some of his online friends. “Just killing time, as there is nothing much official work to do,” he remarks. Another IAS officer in an other office was also “busy” typing his latest “blog post” that would immediately be uploaded on the world-wide web. “These are the things we normally do once in a while in our spare time but these days we have a lot of it during working hours itself. It’s cool,” the officer quips as a matter-of-fact. Many officers, of course, are also active on “Twitter” following the tweets of Paul Krugman, Shashi Tharoor, The Economist and the like “just to keep updated with the trends.” Some IAS officers in the state are opting for mid-career training programmes that run for a week or two either in India or abroad and packing their bags to “enjoy an outing.” A few are happily flying abroad on “official assignments” despite a clear ban on foreign jaunts by bureaucrats.All this is a clear reflection of the “dormant” state of administration in Andhra Pradesh where governance, as bureaucrats admit, has remained paralyzed for the past few months. Given the acute funds crunch faced by the state government, implementation of welfare programmes and development works has become a major casualty while there is an unwritten ban on new schemes. This is one reason being cited by those in the government about the lackadaisical functioning of the entire administration. “In practical terms there is nothing to do in the districts in the given situation. Things are happening only as a matter of routine in the absence of any authoritative monitoring,” the bureaucrats say.With the Cabinet ministers busy with their own political work, administrative reviews have become few and far between in recent months. The Chief Minister has been conducting reviews of different departments periodically but nothing much is apparently happening down the line.
“Administration has become CM-centric when both N Chandrababu Naidu and Y S Rajasekhara Reddy were at the helm of affairs. Being powerful leaders, their writ ran large and the entire administration functioned according to their diktats. Bureaucrats used to look to the Chief Minister for everything previously as all instructions came from him directly. It’s not the case anymore,” a top-ranking IAS officer noted, explaining the “slackness” that is currently apparent in the functioning of the government. "What is clearly lacking in the state administration today is the direction. Hence, nobody is clear about what to do or what not to do," retired bureaucrat K Prabhakar Reddy, who also worked in the Chief Minister's Office noted. Incidentally, the incumbents in the CMO are busy doing fire-fighting what with several controversies dogging the government. Also, there are allegedly internal squabbles among bureaucrats in the CMO compounding the chaos, sources say. Hitherto, ministers used to tour the districts regularly and conduct review meetings on the functioning of their respective departments. Given the hostility between the two regions of Andhra Pradesh over the demand for division of the state, ministers from Telangana region have virtually stopped touring Andhra-Rayalaseema region. And, fearing protests by the separatists, ministers from Andhra-Rayalaseema are not venturing into Telangana. Even within the respective regions, holding of review meetings by ministers has become a rare occurrence, according to a district Collector. “In the last two months, there was just one review meeting with ministers in my district. We did not even conduct the District Review Committee meeting for many months now,” the Collector pointed out. Chief Minister K Rosaiah’s visits to different districts too have been very limited because of various factors, including his health condition, official sources say. All this is leaving a telling impact on the government’s functioning but when will things be back on track is a question that has no answer yet.