NAVEENA GHANATE
Hyderabad
The Union Home Ministry has convened 31 meetings of officials of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and Union Ministries including at the CM and Secretary-level to discuss unresolved issues between the two States under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act after 2014. However, the Centre has not given any timeline for resolving the issues.
The Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai said the Lok Sabha didn’t specify the time by which such meetings should be held to solve pending bifurcation issues and the timeframe to solve bifurcation issues.
Instead, it passed the buck to the states and said, “The approach of the Central Government has consistently been that bilateral issues can be resolved only with the cooperation of the State Governments concerned and that the Centre acts only as a facilitator for the amicable settlement of disputes in a spirit of mutual accommodation and understanding.”
“The Ministry of Home Affairs reviews the progress of implementing the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation (APR) Act, 2014 from time to time with Ministries/Departments concerned as well as the representatives of the Government of Andhra Pradesh and the Government of Telangana. So far, 31 meetings have been held. A large number of provisions of the APR Act, 2014, have been implemented and remaining provisions of the Act are at various stages of implementation,” he said.
“Some provisions on infrastructure projects and educational institutions have long gestation periods for which a period of 10 years has been prescribed in the Act,” he added.
