The issue of appointing an unusually large number of advisors to the Andhra Pradesh Government has now become controversial. There are over 41 such advisors to CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on various issues and different sectors. Though the other governments too have their own set of advisors, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy Government has appointed a large number of advisors.

While there is no way of knowing what YS Jagan is doing with these advices and also whether these advisors are proffering any advice at all, each of these advisors have swanky offices with fully furnished facilities, staff and attendants. The salary of each advisor is said to be around Rs 2 lakh. These advisors are functioning from Hyderabad, Delhi, Vijayawada, Amaravati and even Visakhapatnam.

For instance, a media advisor of YS Jagan is functioning from New Delhi. He is also found making political comments. Jagan has an NRI affairs advisor, who has never toured a country in the past two years. He functions from both Hyderabad and Vijayawada and has two offices. Jagan’s political advisor Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy has a political responsibility as he is a party functionary too.

Given these, the AP High Court took a serious view of appointing so many adviors at a time when the state government is facing severe fund crunch and is finding it difficult to pay even the salaries of its employees. Now that the High Court has severely reprimanded the Government, will there be a change of attitude? Let’s wait and see.