Andhra Pradesh, Telangana squabble over 80,000 secret and confidential files
Hyderabad: The TS and AP governments are squabbling over 80,000 secret and confidential files that are in possession of the AP government.
These files pertain to important decisions on land allotments, industrial concessions and other financial benefits extended to various firms and individuals in undivided AP.
With the shifting of AP Secretariat and offices from Hyderabad to Amaravati getting underway, a dispute is raging over shifting of these files.
The TS government is strongly opposing the shifting of files without its approval and wants the Governor to intervene and appoint a panel to scrutinise each and every file and provide it their photocopies.
There were a total of 3,35,383 files at the time of state bifurcation in June 2014. The bifurcation of state-specific files was done under which 1,31,509 files were allotted to AP and 1,20,260 to TS.
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However, no decision was taken on the remaining 83,614 files. Of these, 78,626 files pertain to both the states and the remaining 4,988 files are neither related to AP nor TS.
However, the sharing of these files has become a bone of contention now. A majority of these files were categorised as ‘secret’ or ‘confidential’ as they comprise decisions taken by state governments in undivided AP with regard to land allotments made to various institutions, individuals, issuance of NOCs, financial grants, encroached and assigned lands, approvals for projects, CM’s Relief Fund, ACB and vigilance cases, promotions to officers and employees, conferring IAS to non-IAS officers etc.
These files had been gathering dust in the Secretariat and other offices in Hyderabad for decades. If they are reopened and scrutinised now, the exercise will ignite fresh controversies between TS and AP, it is feared.
At the same time, the TS government fears that the shifting of these files may cause financial and other losses to the state, in case of any legal or other disputes arising in future as it would not have any evidence to submit before courts on these issues.
The land allotments were made mostly in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts, which command huge real estate value, besides Medak and Nalgonda districts. Some land allotments were done in Vizag and Vijayawada.
