Telangana: No ministers for many new districts

Hyderabad: Telangana will find itself challenged to stick to the usual norm of a minister from every district. The state has a minister from every existing district now.

After the formation of new districts, several will remain unrepresented in the Cabinet as the cap on total strength of  ministers is pegged at 18 including the Chief Minister.

Constitutional provisions limit the strength of the Council of Ministers at 15 per cent of the strength of members of the lower house, the Assembly.

It is not a constitutional obligation to have a minister for each district, but in practice, all heads of government follow it scrupulously. Overall administration of a district runs through a minister from the district.

With the cap on the ministers’ strength at 18 and existing 10 districts to be reorganised into 23 or 24, nine districts may go unrepresented in the Council of Ministers. Further, after reorganization of districts, there could be two ministers from one district while some other district may not have a minister of its own.

For example, Chief Minister K. Chandra-sekhar Rao and minister T. Harish Rao will represent the new Siddipet district, whereas Medak and Sangareddy will have no ministers. Both Mr A. Indrakaran Reddy and Mr Jogu Ramanna will continue to represent Adilabad district, but the new Komaram Bheem district will remain without a minister.

Nizamabad will continue to have Mr P. Srinivas Reddy whereas Kamareddy will have none. Minister C. Laxma Reddy will represent Mahbubnagar and Jupally Krishna Rao represent Wanaparthy (new) but Nagarkurnool will not have a minister.

The  new Nalgonda district will have no minister, Mr Jagadish Reddy will represent Suryapet. Khammam will continue to have Mr Tummala Nageswara Rao as minister but Bhadradri will go unrepresented in the Cabinet,
Karimnagar will have ministers Etela Rajender (Karimnagar) and K.T. Rama Rao (Jagityal) if Sircilla is included in it.

There are four ministers representing the capital, which is to be bifurcated. Mr Talasani Srinivas Yadav and Mr Padma Rao Goud will represent Secunderabad and Mr Nayani Narasimha Reddy and Mr Mahmood Ali will represent Hyderabad.

As far as Yadadri district is concerned, if Station Ghanpur of the existing Warangal district is included, then Warangal (old), Mahbubabad will have no minister. Mr A. Chandulal will represent the newly proposed Jayashankar district.