Consultants are back

HYDERABAD: Last year, flush from its election victory on an anti-liberalisation plank, the Rajasekhara Reddy government got rid of consultants and employees retained on post-retirement extensions by the Chandrababu Naidu regime. The idea was that these appointments were blocking promotion avenues for government servants. A year later, consultants and ''experts''-a different set of them-are back in the administration.
Sources said no less than 40 ''outside experts,'' as they are called, including one retired IAS officer, have been taken into service in 12 departments with handsome remuneration packages.
All these appointments were reportedly made on the pretext of administrative reforms funded by the UK''s Department For International Development (DFID), the same agency that attracted criticism for pushing the privatisation agenda through Trojan Horse consultants in the Chandrababu Naidu years.
As part of an agreement with the DFID, sweetened by a 60 crore grant, the Rajasekhara Reddy government has initiated administrative reforms in a number of departments. The vehicle carrying these reforms goes by the seemingly nondescript moniker of ''Strategy and Performance Innovation Unit'' (SPIU). These are separate units in the general administration, finance, education, health, panchayat raj, municipal administration, welfare, revenue, police, industries, irrigation and agriculture departments and aid in the preparation of strategies, action plans, availability of finances, etc. and take up reforms dear to globalisation-era funding agencies, such as introducing citizen''s charters.
The Union government was rather cool to this programme due to objections from some other states, but gave its approval for AP at the specific request of Rajasekhara Reddy government, it is learnt.
To run these programmes, these departments have taken on ''outside experts.''