Bifurcation of Labour Dept. posts finally heading for resolution

The division of the State cadre posts in the Labour Department between the successor States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh appears to be heading for a resolution.

The Andhra Pradesh government drafted a tentative list of 87 assistant commissioners of labour (ACL) who would be covered in division from the two States. The department has a total 106 posts of ACL rank officers of which 19 had been reserved for direct recruits.

The State Reorganisation wing of the neighbouring State is understood to have sent the report with its comments to Finance Secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao, who is also handling the State Reorganisation Affairs, for his concurrence.

“Once Mr. Ramakrishna Rao gives his consent, the process of bifurcation of the employees will commence,” a senior official of the AP government said.

The integrated seniority list of the officers of the two States had been prepared in consultation with the officials concerned of Telangana. The process of division between the two States would start once the consent of the Telangana government is received.

A section of Telangana officials are however contending that the list has been prepared unilaterally and the government needs to keep the interests of the State employees in view before giving its consent for the bifurcation.

A resolution had been pending for the issue following the orders given by the government of the erstwhile united State designating the Labour Officer posts as multi-zonal and the post of assistant commissioner of labour as State cadre posts. The posts of Labour Officers has been upgraded as ACL later and promotions were given to the latter treating them as multi-zonal posts.

This was however challenged in the AP Administrative Tribunal by a section of officers and the Tribunal said designating ACLs as multi-zonal posts is not in accordance with the Presidential Orders and wanted the posts to be treated as State cadre posts.

The APAT’s observation was upheld by the High Court which directed the officials concerned to treat the post as State cadre posts for allocation between the two States.