Telangana to more than double its districts

The Telangana government is planning to split the existing 10 districts into 24-25 smaller ones for administrative convenience.

On Monday, chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao said his government would conduct a workshop next month to give a final shape to these proposals.

On average, each of these new districts would comprise of four-five assembly segments and 20 mandals (lower-level administrative units). The re-organisaton of districts and mandals will be done scientifically and on the principle of public convenience, the chief minister said.

The state government intends to spend Rs 100 crore on building infrastructure such as collectorates and other district-level offices in each of the new district headquarters.  

The chief minister said the government was keen to establish new districts by the Dussehra festival in October.

The central department of personnel and training had recently raised the cadre strength of IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officers for Telangana on the request of the state government. With this, the state government will be able to allocate IAS officers to new districts.

The Centre has increased the cadre strength by 45 to 208 from the present 163 officers.

The additional cadre strength will be made available to the state, over a period, in the form of direct recruits as well as promotees from the state level services.