Vijayawada: While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a call to the nation to adopt austere measures, especially by reducing fuel consumption due to the West Asia crisis, several of AP’s senior IAS officers couldn’t care less.
Many senior bureaucrats continue to drive from Amaravati to Hyderabad to visit their families during weekends, in government vehicles, with no curbs imposed yet.
After bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in June 2014, then CM Chandrababu Naidu shifted his administration to Amaravati in October, 2016. It has become a regular practice for a majority of the All India Service officers and other employees to shuttle between Amaravati and Hyderabad during weekends.
They leave Amaravati by Friday evening and return to work on Monday. Even though almost 10 years are over since the shifting of administration, the practice of shuttling between the two places is continuing. More so, the IAS officers in government vehicles.
They use only the officially allotted government vehicles for this purpose, causing huge additional expenditure to the exchequer by way of fuel and maintenance charges.
Some officials fly from the Vijayawada international airport to Hyderabad and back at governmental expense by citing “official work”.
Ministers do not show the nerve to question senior officials, who are also an organised lot.
The state government is incurring huge expenditure on these officers, offering them spacious accommodation in Amaravati by paying hefty rents, they continue to visit Hyderabad every weekend at the expense of the government.
Senior IAS officers like SS Rawat working as special chief secretary, services, and Ajay Jain working as special chief secretary, housing, are among many who shuttle from Amravati to Hyderabad and vice versa on a regular basis.
A senior official said, “The IAS officers use official vehicles to go to their homes in Hyderabad during weekends and come back, while some fly using government resources.”
Some of the officially allotted vehicles of these officers are kept in running mode in the parking lots especially during the legislature sessions for several hours, burning huge quantities of fuels and even causing environmental pollution with the emission of noxious gases. No questions are asked about their excesses.
Bureaucracy, it is said, is a “rule unto itself.”
Official sources say that the number of officers shuttling between Amaravati and Hyderabad and vice versa has slightly come down of late. Some of them are now staying with their families in the official accommodations mainly at Tadepalli, Mangalagiri, Vijayawada, Guntur and other areas.
There, it is widely felt, is a need to impose curbs on officials’ travel by road, rail or air at the expense of the government. The free-for-all must stop.
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