PNS|Vijayawada
The Ministry of Health, Family Welfare and Medical Education has launched a large-scale general transfer exercise, expected to affect over 15,000 medical and administrative personnel across Andhra Pradesh. The transfers, which began on Sunday, mark the first such exercise since 2023 and have sparked significant interest and concern among government health employees following the issuance of new transfer guidelines.
The Finance Department had lifted the ban on general transfers on 15 May 2025, allowing individual ministries to formulate their own transfer policies based on functional requirements. In line with this, the Health Ministry released its special transfer guidelines on 31 May, after extensive consultations involving Health Minister Satya Kumar Yadav, the Special Chief Secretary, and heads of various departments. The revised rules are intended to streamline the system, address administrative challenges, and end prolonged postings that may have led to irregularities.
Under the new guidelines, administrative staff who have completed more than three years at a station will now be mandatorily transferred. This is the first time such a rule is being implemented to tackle inefficiencies caused by extended postings.
Union office bearers who have served between three and nine years at a location will be shifted within the same station if vacancies exist; otherwise, they will be posted elsewhere. The transfer exercise also aims to correct posting mismatches across the system. Doctors of ADME rank and medical professors will be moved based on administrative needs, and all staff with over five years of service at one location will be compulsorily transferred.
To ensure clarity and avoid misinterpretation, the Ministry is expected to issue a special memo shortly, explicitly listing the offices and departments that fall under the three-year transfer norm, especially those related to district headquarters administrative units.
During the transfer ban period of 2023–24, only a few exceptions were considered on humanitarian grounds. Since the lifting of the ban, around 30 such cases have been approved by the Minister, amounting to just 0.2% of the total transfers. These include a young medical officer who was widowed days after marriage, a senior assistant undergoing regular dialysis, and a doctor receiving treatment for advanced cancer.
The current transfer round has been carefully structured after reviewing past complications and aims to strike a balance between administrative efficiency and personal as well as humanitarian considerations.
