A.P., TS headed for another showdown

The Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments were headed for another tiff after the latter gave its IAS officer Mukesh Kumar Meena full additional charge of the post of Director General of Centre for Good Governance, which is a Schedule X institution in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act.

The Act envisaged that all Schedule X institutions and their assets will belong to States where they are headquartered. The CGG, which is headquartered at the Marri Channa Reddy Human Resource Development Institute at Jubilee Hills and has a separate campus at Gachibowli was one of the 107 institutions included in this Schedule when the Act came into force last year. Thirty-five more institutions were added to the list a few days ago.

The executive functions of CGG are at present handled by a senior IAS officer and Finance Secretary of Telangana government K. Ramakrishna Rao as its Director General. He left on a three-week foreign tour in the early hours of Wednesday. Later in the day, however, the Andhra Pradesh Chief Secretary I.Y.R. Krishna Rao issued an order placing Mr. Meena, a 1998 batch IAS officer, in full additional charge of the post of DG of CGG.

This is a repeat of at least two other such instances when AP government appointed its officers to head similar training institutions which were already controlled by Telangana government. Chandana Khan was posted to the YSR National Institute of Tourism and Hospitality Management in the first case and B. Sam Bob was made in-charge Director General of National Academy of Construction in the second. Incidentally, NAC was among 35 institutions added to Schedule X recently.

Denied entry

Anticipating fresh trouble like when Ms. Chandana Khan sat on the pavement and held a meeting when the police denied her entry into YSR NITHM, security at MCR HRD was again stepped up after Mr. Meena sent word that he would assume office at CGG on Wednesday . The police and press corps waited for over three hours from 4 p.m. but returned as there was no indication of his arrival. The CGG was a leading agency in assisting State and Central governments in governance reforms and was governed by a board chaired by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

AP gives its IAS officer charge of

a Schedule X institution