Lucknow, March 4 :     The Uttar Pradesh government has transferred the control of 10 key departments looking after rural affairs to gram panchayats, in a move that will both decentralise and downsize the administration. Elected representatives at the village level will now run the departments and take all decisions, including hiring staff and fixing pay scales. Once the transition is complete, government staff in these departments will become redundant and will gradually be eased out. Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Yogendra Narayan said the strength of government employees will ultimately come down from 9.78 lakhs at present to about five lakhs. ?Currently, only 10 departments have been decentralised and control handed over to the gram panchayats. Under the 73rd amendment to the Constitution, 29 departments will be given to rural local bodies,? he said. Narayan said: ?We will stop recruitments in the departments that have been transferred. The employees currently employed will continue till their retirement. Simultaneously, the gram panchayats will start recruiting employees for departments transferred to them.? The new employees will be recruited from among the villagers and will draw their pay from gram sabhas. Narayan said the departments transferred to the 1.25 lakh village panchayats include rural development, panchayati raj, primary and junior high schools, tube wells, hand pumps, healthcare sub-centres, veterinary hospitals and service centres of the animal husbandry department, youth welfare, sections of the agriculture department and the public distribution section of the food department. The funds will come from the budgetary allocation for rural local bodies. Under the present system in Uttar Pradesh, 4 per cent of the state?s revenue is set aside for rural local bodies. This year?s allocation for gram panchayats is Rs 382 crore. ?The government will continue to fund the panchayats till they start raising their own resources. Only, instead of district magistrates, the money will now be in the hands of local representatives,? said Anurag Goel, chief minister?s principal secretary. Chief minister Kalyan Singh is enthusiastic about the move. ?Other parties and states talk of decentralisation. But though we have been late starters, we have done more than other states,? he said. While states like Karnataka, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra were quick off the block to decentralise, the sheer size of the workforce makes this a mammoth task in Uttar Pradesh. Political pressure has already started mounting against the move as government jobs will be reduced. The decision to decentralise, however, is not motivated entirely by altruism. The Congress and the Samajwadi Party allege that with elections to local bodies due next year, the BJP hopes to use this bait to get votes. ?Once the BJP wins a fair number of seats in local bodies, the RSS cadre will control financial and appointing rights in the departments, giving them the all-important administrative control,? said Pramod Tiwari, Congress Legislature Party leader.