Two months on, AP-Telangana continue to spar over apportions

Hyderabad, Aug 6: Squabbling between the governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana continues unabated two months after the bifurcation with each blaming the other as the aggressor even as almost every "contentious" issue remains unresolved.

The Telangana government, in fact, has faced wrath of the courts over its "unilateral" actions but it is not ready to budge. The Andhra Pradesh government has been repeatedly petitioning the Governor E S L Narasimhan, who is common for both states, against the "high-handed acts" but the Telangana regime remains nonchalant.

Things had come to such a pass recently that Union Minister for Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu stepped in to broker peace between the two 'warring' states, advising Chief Ministers N Chandrababu Naidu and K Chandrasekhar Rao to "honour the spirit of the AP Reorganisation Act and not let hatred spread among Telugu people."

The AP government, in particular, is miffed over the "repeated violations" of the AP Reorganisation Act "in both letter and in spirit" by the Government of Telangana. A case in point is the bifurcation of institutions like the Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University and Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University.

Though these two institutions were not included in either Schedule 9 or Schedule 10 of the AP Reorganisation Act, the Telangana government issued orders two days ago bifurcating and re-naming them, much to the chagrin of the AP government. "An institution which does not find place in Schedule 9 or 10 of the Act should automatically devolve to the 'continuing' state that is Andhra Pradesh.

Any attempt to change its character should be a bilateral exercise as agreed upon by the successor states and cannot be done unilaterally," the AP government contended in a petition to the Governor. In fact, official sources said, the Governor wrote a letter to the Union Home Ministry last month itself seeking clarity on the status of these institutions as well as 35 other institutions\organisations that were not included in Schedule 9 or 10 of the Act. "There has been no response from the Centre yet on this," the sources added.

As the Telangana government has been going ahead with the apportioning exercise without consulting the AP government, Chief Secretary I Y R Krishna Rao reviewed the issue with top officials here yesterday and decided to take up the issue with the Centre once again. Fate of major institutions like the NTR University of Health Sciences, Sri Venkateswara Vedic University, AP Judicial Academy, AP Foods, AP Horticulture Training Institute, DNA Fingerprinting and Transgenic Crops Monitoring Laboratory and many others thus hang in balance now.

Even, there is no clarity yet on the Institution of Lokayukta, State Election Commission, AP Information Commission (under the RTI Act), AP Human Rights Commission and AP Administrative Tribunal but it is "given to understand" that they will continue to operate as common institutions till alternative arrangements are made, official sources noted. The Governor, reacting to AP's "concerns", was said to have assured that he would ensure that such violations (by Telangana government) did not repeat.

PTI