In a bid to break the impasse over Eamcet counselling, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday offered that his government would bear 58 per cent of the total fee reimbursement amount for professional courses and wanted Telangana to pay the balance amount.
At a press conference here, Mr Naidu said he was voluntarily coming up with the offer in the best interests of the students on the basis of the population ratio of the two States. Mr Naidu renewed his appeal that both the State Governments should sit across-the-table and try to resolve any dispute even as he criticised the TRS Government for fixing 1956 as the cut-off year for deciding nativity of those residing in Telangana. Questioning the rationale behind fixing 1956, he said there should be some method and asked “who will decide about nativity. Which MRO has records”.
Mr. Naidu reiterated that there was Presidential Order and six-point formula to decide the domicile issue. Besides, the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 stipulated that there should be common admissions to professional courses for 10 years. He said the Centre and President Pranab Mukherjee should think about it and added that he would write a letter if necessary. Charging the Telangana Government with deliberately raking up controversies on different issues, he said that solution could be found to any intractable problem if representatives of both the governments sit together and discuss.
It would be better if both the governments hold a dialogue and there could be some give-and-take. “’Everything is being turned into a controversy and this is not correct”, he added. Pointing out that as per the Supreme Court directive, the admissions should start by August 1 for engineering courses, he said this was not dictatorship for somebody to impose their writ.
Asked if the move of the Telanganga Government to carry out household survey was aimed at identifying Andhras, he shot back “how will they identify. Is it on the basis of language and dress?.” Mr Naidu said Hyderabad’s population which was 10 lakhs in 1956, swelled to 1.10 crore.
