Secretariat continues to boil with employees from Telangana and AP

Hyderabad: Nearly a month after the bifurcation of the state, the Secretariat continues to be on the boil with employees from both states nearly coming to blows over different issues on a daily basis.

A fierce showdown between employees from both the states sparked off tension on the Secretariat premises here on Thursday.

It started with Seemandhra employees asking Telangana staff to immediately vacate the L-Block, which has been allotted to AP.

Telangana employees countered by asking their Seemandhra counterparts to first vacate the D-Block, allotted to Telangana.

Telangana staff argued that they would vacate L-Block only after the Seemandhra employees shifted from D-Block.

This led to heated arguments between both the groups. At one stage, they nearly came to blows. However, police intervened immediately and dispersed the employees.

Telangana employees argued that Seemandhra staff had to vacate D-Block first since they were functioning from the Secretariat that was located in Telangana.

Seemandhra employees refused to oblige, stating that Hyderabad was the joint capital for both the states for 10 years and they had all the right to work freely and without any fear.

Employees raised slogans against each other. While Telangana employees raised “Jai Telangana” slogans, Seemandhra staff countered with “Jai Andhra” slogans.

“We are already facing a severe space crunch in the blocks allotted to Andhra Pradesh. As this was not enough, several Telangana departments continue to function from Seemandhra blocks. We have been waiting patiently for the last few weeks and have been requesting them to vacate our blocks at the earliest to enable smooth functioning. But they are trying to provoke us with Telangana slogans,” said U. Murali Krishna of the Secretariat Seemandhra Employees’ Association.

However, Telangana employees refuted these allegations questioning the right of the Seemandhra employees to ask them to vacate when they themselves were working from Telangana blocks in Secretariat.

“Several AP departments continue to work from Telangana blocks. Let them first vacate Telangana blocks before asking us to do the same,” said A. Padma Chary of the Telangana Employees Association.

The failure of both the state governments in completing the bifurcation process with regard to distribution of blocks, files etc., has been leading to frequent face offs.

Though the eight blocks in the Secretariat were clearly divided between both the states more than a month ago, officials failed to shift the departments accordingly, leading to frequent quarrels between employees.