bifurcation bugbear

The central government signaled its intention to resolve bilateral issues between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh by constituting a committee under the chairmanship of Ashish Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs. The first meeting of the committee has been scheduled on February 17 through video conferencing.

However, both the states are not optimistic about the results. When asked about the likely outcome of this initiative, a senior Telangana official said: “Zero.” The pessimism is not unfounded: While the initial note issued by the home ministry said that special category status to Andhra Pradesh was part of the agenda of the meeting, a later revised note made no mention of special category status.

Both the States have been complaining for some time about the inaction of the Central Government in exercising the powers conferred by the Act. Section 48 of the Act states: “In the case of any dispute relating to the distribution of any goods or class of goods, the Central Government shall resolve such dispute by mutual agreement between the governments of the successor States for that purpose.” failing which the Central Government may, at the request of any of the Governments of the successor States, after consultation with the Governments of the successor States, do so for the distribution of such goods or class of goods, as the case may be. may issue such directions as it deems fit, under this sub-section”. Senior officials say that one of the pending issues since the bifurcation of the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh is the Andhra Pradesh Bhavan in New Delhi. It is within the jurisdiction of the Center to issue orders on the division of Andhra Pradesh Bhawan, but the Center has not yet taken any initiative.

Section 108(1) of the Act states: “If any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of this Act, the President may, by order, do anything inconsistent with such provisions as he may consider necessary or expedient for the purpose.” for the removal of the difficulty: Provided that no such order shall be made after the expiry of a period of three years from the appointed day”. However, for more than seven-and-a-half years after the bifurcation of the state, the Center had not issued any orders on its part, say officials. The Union Home Secretaries – formerly Rajiv Gauba and now Ajay Kumar Bhalla – convened several high-level meetings, but none of them yielded any result in resolving the issues arising out of Partition.

Officials say the Center has failed to give commitment on implementing the provisions in the Act. One such provision is for the delimitation of assembly constituencies in the successor states. Section 26(1) of the Act says “…the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of the successor States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana shall be increased from 175 and 119 to 225 and 153 respectively”.

Officials claim that many of the infrastructure projects assured to the two successor states in Schedule XIII of the Act remain on paper. Some of these include setting up of steel factories by SAIL in both the states, a port at Dugarajpatnam in Andhra Pradesh and a rail coach factory in Telangana. The Rail Coach Factory was later demolished on the ground that at present there is no demand for rail coaches.

It is against the context that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement in the Rajya Sabha on the issues of Partition resulted in protests across Telangana. Instead of criticizing the Congress for all the problems Mr Modi should present the solution to the pending issues. It is expected that the Center will take the proceedings of the preparatory meeting seriously and take steps to resolve the vexing issues of Partition instead of taking political advantage of the situation.

rajeev.madabhushi@thehindu.co.in