The proposed meeting of the Chief Secretaries of two Telugu States, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, to discuss pending reorganisation issues could not take place on Thursday as the AP Chief Secretary Nilam Sawhney expressed her inability to attend the deliberations owing to pressing engagements.
Though the Telangana delegation headed by the State Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar was prepared to attend the meeting, it was deferred as Ms. Sawhney said she could not attend the meeting as she was busy with the arrangements for the meeting of the high power committee on capital issue slated on Friday, followed by the meeting of the State Cabinet the next day and the brief session of Legislature starting on January 20.
The AP Chief Secretary, however, asked senior bureaucrat L. Premchandra Reddy, who is supervising the State Reorganisation Affairs, to meet Mr. Somesh Kumar this morning. Mr. Premchandra Reddy held deliberations on the pending issues with his Telangana counterpart K. Ramakrishna Rao during a meeting which lasted three-hours in the presence of Mr. Somesh Kumar.
The two officials described the meeting as a routine interaction on the pending issues, but it was learnt that the Telangana government had reiterated its stand on addressing the pending issues in line with the provisions of the AP Reorganisation Act 2014.
The division of assets and liabilities relating to the Schedule IX and Schedule X institutions figured predominantly during the meeting.
The Telangana government has reportedly decided to identify the issues that could be resolved through mutual acceptance and prioritise them during the next meeting whenever it is held. Senior officials said the State was prepared to attend the meeting as and when the AP Chief Secretary conveys her consent and “it is up to them to decide about the date. Complex issues like the division of assets and liabilities of 32 institutions not listed under any Schedule will be taken up subsequently,” a senior official told The Hindu .
These 32 are in addition to 13 complicated issues like division of assets and liabilities of erstwhile APSRTC, Deccan Infrastructure and Landholdings Limited (DIL), erstwhile State Finance Corporation, dues between power utilities of the two States and others.
The stalemate on these issues had been persisting since the State had not accepted the recommendations of the expert committee on the ground that they were inclined in favour of Andhra Pradesh.
