Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee, to go into the demands of “separate Telangana” and “United Andhra Pradesh,” has invited views and suggestions on its terms of reference (ToR) from the recognised National/State political parties in Andhra Pradesh.
Similar letters would also be sent to various other stakeholders, said Committee’s Member-Secretary V.K. Duggal on Tuesday.
The former Home Secretary, who is now in Hyderabad to discuss with the State government officials on the infrastructure arrangements to be made for the Committee to hold its hearings, told The Hindu over phone that the Committee was receiving encouraging response from those in AP as well as outside, after publication of advertisement in newspapers on February 20 seeking views on ToR. “I am happy that the response is quite positive.”
The Committee’s third meeting, which would most probably be an introductory one, would be held in Hyderabad in the first week of March and it was planned to hold the regular hearings there from the end of March.
Asked about the decision of some of the parties and organisations to boycott the Committee’s hearings, he quipped: “they too will come and give their views to us as the hearings progresses and our intention to provide a honest and impartial report is known.”
To a question, he said all sorts of requirement in infrastructure and personal/secretarial staff for the Committee like interpreters, stenographers, recorders, conference rooms and other facilities would be discussed with the State government officials in detail on Wednesday. The security angle too would be looked into.
Meanwhile, the Congress MPs from Telangana appealed to Congress president Sonia Gandhi that the Centre’s December 9 statement on the separate Statehood issue should be included in ToR to clear the air over the issue. This was to ensure that Telangana people would have no doubt about the Centre’s initiative for wide ranging consultations, they said.
They accused Chief Minister K. Rosaiah of ignoring the interests of Telangana region in the State budget 2010-11 presented by him recently.
