Telangana raises pending split issues

Hyderabad: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on home affairs headed by P.  Chidambaram met on pending issues and non-implementation of the AP Bifurcation Act, 2014, in Delhi on Friday. The TS government deputed chief adviser to the government Rajiv Sharma, chief secretary S.K. Joshi and senior officials to make strong arguments before the panel on the non-implementation of assurances given in the Act. The TS wants re-merger of seven mandals in Khammam that were merged into AP soon after the bifurcation of state  besides division of the AP High Court and division of Schedule IX, X institutions.

The TS questioned as to why the Assembly, Secretariat and other government buildings in Hyderabad that were allotted to AP were not handed back to TS even after AP shifted them to Amaravathi. The TS government took strong exception to Centre delaying the bifurcation of High Court under one pretext or the other. “We have offered even alternate accommodation in Hyderabad to house AP High Court after bifurcation, if the AP government is not in a position to provide accommodation in Amaravati at present. But no initiative has been taken either by the Centre or the AP government for the bifurcation of court. We have been representing this issue to the Centre for the past four years but in vain,” the TS government argued.

The state government demanded remerger of seven mandals in Khammam, that were merged into AP, within a week of bifurcation of state by issuing an ordinance. The government also took up the issue of not fulfilling the setting up of Bayyaram steel plant, tribal university,  not granting national status to any irrigation project in Telagnana while giving the same to Polavaram project in AP. The meeting assumed significance in the backdrop of AP Reorganisation Act hogging national attention with the TD moving no confidence motion against NDA government in Lok Sabha recently, which was backed by Congress and other non-BJP parties.