The Union government has approved the Telangana state government's new zonal system for the recruitment of staff for state government services. The new zonal system will favour locals to get 95% of all opportunities in state-level recruitments. As per a notification, two ‘Multi-Zones’, which include seven zones, were created for all departments except the police department.

The police department has been organised into two separate multi-zones, with its own list of seven zones, which include all police commissionerates and district police headquarters.

The Ministry of Home Affairs released a gazette notification, which said that the Telangana Public Employment (Organisation of Local Cadre and Regulation of Direct Recruitment) 2018 had been amended and would be called Telangana Public Employment (Organisation of Local Cadre and Regulation of Direct Recruitment) Amendment Order, 2021.

All upcoming notifications and recruitments will be carried out as per the new zonal system. The new zonal system will facilitate transfers, besides recruitment of employees for state-level services. The system which was proposed by the Telangana government in 2018 had already received a Presidential nod after Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior Union Ministers and officials on the issue.

The seven zones are Kaleshwaram (Zone 1), Basara (Zone 2), Rajanna (Zone 3), Bhadradri (Zone 4), Yadadri (Zone 5), Charminar (Zone 6) and Jogulamba (Zone 7). While zones 1,2,3 and 4 would be part of the first Multi-Zone, the remaining would be part of the second Multi-Zone.

Reservations for locals in jobs was one of key promises made by the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao during the Telangana movement for separate statehood. The state government recently claimed that they will take up recruitment of as many as 50,000 vacancies in different departments of the state government, once the new zonal system was implemented.