Rama Krishna Sangem
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has decided to observe June 10, Saturday as the Good Governance Day in the three week long celebrations to mark Telangana formation nine years ago. His bold move to carve out 23 new districts out of 10 old ones seven years ago is one of the major decisions that helped good governance like no other. With 33 districts, good governance has come within the reach of common man.
The Telangana government has implemented the most daring administrative reforms to bring public administration closer to the people. At the same time the redistribution of administrative departments was undertaken. New administrative units were also created.
Before October 2016, there were 10 districts in Telangana. Each district has an average population of over 35 lakhs. This makes administration difficult. In some places, it used to be 200 to 250 km to reach the district headquarters and offices. Due to this, officials of the district centers had to travel to villages and people also faced many difficulties to go to the district headquarters.
The number of families living in the district was 10 lakhs, this made it difficult for the authorities to know ground situation in the villages, this made it difficult for the officials to concentrate on the problems of the people in far flung villages in the districts. To overcome these problems the Telangana state government created 23 new districts in Telangana under the Districts Reorganization Act-1974 increasing the number of districts from 10 to 33.
As a result, efficient governance is being done with small administrative units. The new districts were launched on 11 October 2016. It increased the number of revenue divisions from 43 to 74, mandals from 459 to 612 and gram panchayats 12,769.
District administration accessible to all
The government has formed new departments of all government departments in the newly formed districts. This made it possible for people to reach district headquarters within an hour. Implementation of development and welfare programs and monitoring is made easy for the authorities. Officials are getting full understanding of local conditions, resources, peculiarities, people’s needs and social conditions.
Identifying local resources and designing development models is 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 door steps of people in much less time.
There are agencies and forest areas in some parts of the state. It 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. Programs are being done according to the needs of the area. It allows 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. It is noted that Crime control and crime investigation also became much easier due to the reduction in the extent of police commissionerates and police stations, where the police can reach the crime scene quickly.
