Á crucial meeting of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao with Governor E. S. L. Narasimhan at the Raj Bhavan on Monday set the ball rolling to resolve contentious issues between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Following this, the Governor convened a ministerial-level meeting between the two States on Wednesday. Telangana will be represented by Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao, Energy Minister S. Jagdishwar Reddy and Advisor to government on inter-State issues G. Vivekanand and Andhra Pradesh by Ministers Y. Ramakrishnudu and K. Atchan Naidu and Government Chief Whip K. Srinivasulu.
Since it will be the first full-fledged meeting between the two States to thrash out differences, sources said it might be limited to assessing the contentious issues of occupation of buildings by both governments, mainly in Secretariat, division of employees and the status of bifurcation of Schedule 9 and Schedule 10 institutions by the Sheila Bhide Committee and the Home Ministry respectively.
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The meeting assumed significance in the backdrop of a resolution adopted by the Cabinet of Telangana asking the Andhra Pradesh government to vacate Secretariat as it was no longer functioning from there and requesting the Governor to allocate the buildings to Telangana. The entire Hermitage building where the rural development department of Telangana was functioning was offered to Andhra Pradesh for its residual offices in lieu of Secretariat buildings.
Rightful owner
The resolution was referred to the Andhra Pradesh government which constituted a Cabinet sub-committee to look into the matter. The committee decided against handing over the properties as the AP government was rightful owner for the remaining seven and a half years as per the AP Reorganisation Act but the Telangana government insisted that the “need” for the accommodation was not justified. It cited that most of the accommodation was under lock and key to store records.
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The Telangana government was serious about acquiring buildings of AP in Secretariat as early as possible to raze all the structures and take up new construction. It proposed to build a new Secretariat for itself in six floors over 8 lakh sq ft at a cost of Rs 300 crore.
The Governor was also seized of the deadlock in division of 80-odd corporations in Schedule 9 institutions and 144 institutions in Schedule 10.
Chief Ministers K. Chandrasekhar Rao and N. Chandrababu Naidu also discussed the issues when they met at Raj Bhavan for different purposes recently. The contentions of two States over the functioning of the Krishna river management board added to the strain in the relationships.
Sources said the AP government had assessed the value of properties in its custody and was likely to seek land of that value on Hyderabad outskirts to set up its establishments if it was asked to hand over the properties.