Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister A. Revanth Reddy and his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N. Chandrababu Naidu have held a high-level meeting in Hyderabad on Saturday (July 6) and resolved to set up two committees comprising ministers and officials to address the pending issues between the two states, a decade after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
The panels will have representatives from both the states.
Apart from Reddy, the meeting was attended Telangana by deputy chief minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, ministers D. Sridhar Babu and Ponnam Prabhakar and chief secretary A. Santhi Kunari. Andhra Pradesh was represented by Naidu, his cabinet colleagues A. Satya Prasad, B.C. Janardhan Reddy and Kandula Durgesh beside chief secretary Neerabh Kumar Prasad and other senior officials.
Briefing media persons later, Bhatti Vikramarka said the meeting was convened with the sole aim to put in place a mechanism to take policy decisions on unresolved bifurcation issues. He mentioned that it was decided to set up an official committee with representatives from both the states in the first layer. Issues that remained unresolved here would be taken to the ministerial level committee and, if still remained unaddressed, to the Apex body of both Chief Ministers, the deputy chief minister added.
A senior official who did not want to be identified said out of the 70 odd issues pending resolution, nearly 50 were fit to be addressed at the official level but the lack of political will by respective governments dragged the matter for a decade.
Notably, after the Ministry of Home Affairs failed to break the deadlock holding nearly thirty meetings, the Andhra Pradesh government approached the Supreme Court in 2022 to appoint arbitrators under court supervision to find a way out.
As the prospects of a solution under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act appeared increasingly unlikely, Naidu took the initiative on July 1, writing formal letter to Telangana chief minister Reddy to request a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders, representing the two Telugu-speaking states, in a bid to break the impasse. Post this development, Reddy consulted with his cabinet colleagues, paving the way for the high-level meeting.
In his letter, Naidu had written: “It is incumbent upon us to foster close cooperation to ensure sustained progress and prosperity of two States. In ten years, there have been multiple discussions concerning issues arising from Reorganisation Act which hold significant implications for the welfare and advancement of our States. I firmly believe that a face to face meeting will provide us with the opportunity to engage comprehensively on these critical issues and collaborate effectively towards achieving mutually beneficial solutions for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.”
Reddy replied: “I am in complete agreement with your reflections. It is indeed an imperative need to resolve all pending issues of the Act. An in-person meeting is necessary to help us build a strong foundation for mutual cooperation, exchange of ideas and enable us to better serve our respective people.”
The communication between the two chief ministers which paved the way for renewed harmony between the two neighbouring state governments has to be viewed in a political context that was missing for years.
As a sequel, the meeting was conducted in Hyderabad on Saturday as suggested by Naidu at the sprawling campus and swank buildings of Praja Bhavan, home to former chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, at Begumpet in the heart of Hyderabad. The meeting generated a lot of excitement in official circles as they saw hope of the division of government assets between the two states to the tune of Rs 1.40 lakh crore.
There were 91 government corporations and companies listed under Schedule IX of the Reorganisation Act whose assets, liabilities and cash reserves has to be divided between the two states. There was agreement between the two governments in respect of 61 corporations and companies but a solution eluded for 23 remaining entities which were crucial like the State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) and the State Finance Corporation (SFC).
Thirty training institutions and centers, including the high court, Raj Bhavan, and Telugu University, are disputed assets among the 142 listed under Schedule X of the Act. The Centre had appointed a committee headed by retired bureaucrat Sheela Bhide to divide the properties. The committe had submitted it’s report granting several concessions to Andhra Pradesh but Telangana refused to accept saying it was the rightful owner of the corporations and institutions mentioned in Schedules IX and X as per the definition of “headquarters” given by the committee. It insisted on implementation of “as is where is” norm since most of them were headquartered in Hyderabad which became the exclusive capital of Telangana last month. The bifurcation law had fixed only ten years for Hyderabad as the joint capital of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh which expired on June 2, the day when separate Telangana was formed in 2014.
On the other hand, Andhra Pradesh demanded it’s share of land parcels, buildings and bank reserves of common institutions located in Hyderabad in the ratio of 58 (for Andhra Pradesh) : 42 (for Telangana) as decided on population basis in the Act. Despite conducting numerous physical and virtual meetings with state officials, the Centre failed to convince them, and asked the two governments to resolve the differences among themselves.
The first chief secretary of Telangana Rajiv Sharma told The Wire that the committee report was not consistent with the principles of Reorganisation Act. “It was applied selectively which benefitted Andhra Pradesh. The contention of Andhra Pradesh to accept the report in toto was not negotiable to Telangana which sought a case by case resolution of issues.”
Another former chief secretary of Andhra Pradesh L.V. Subramanyam said apportionment of assets between the states is the main issue holding up dispute resolution in an amicable way. “Telangana has to pay for the assets claimed by Andhra Pradesh to relocate the institutions in its new territory. But, the Telangana government has disputed numbers and calculations on 58% share of Andhra Pradesh. It would be a huge amount to be shelled down by Telangana if the state had to pay on today’s market value for properties. This, Telangana is not willing to bargain,” Subramanyam told The Wire.
Apart from the Schedules, there were several other key issues like sharing of river water between the two states and payment of power dues by Telangana for supply by Andhra Pradesh immediately after bifurcation in 2014 to 2017. Andhra Pradesh demanded Rs 7,000 crore but Telangana also raised a power bill of Rs 24,000 crore from the former state for some other arrears. There were also disputes in the distribution of staff.
In the earlier innings of Naidu as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh from 2014 to 2019, he had met his then Telangana counterpart K. Chandrashekar Rao at the meeting of apex council on river water issues convened by then Union Water Resources minister Uma Bharti but nothing on pending issues was discussed. During that term, quite a few ministerial level meetings were held in Hyderabad and Vijayawada to settle the issues but they met a road block after Telangana unsuccessfully insisted that Andhra Pradesh should give up it’s right on four blocks in the secretariat to enable it to take a new and grandiose construction.
Naidu and Rao had already fallen apart by then though the latter was a minister in Naidu’s cabinet during 1995-1999.
The meeting on Saturday was different from earlier attempts because Reddy was an MLA and MLC of Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and held the latter in high esteem even now. In recognition of his skills, Naidu had appointed Reddy as the working president of the Telangana unit of TDP in 2014.
The arrest of Reddy and his subsequent jail term in a cash for vote scam in 2015 changed his political fortunes. He was caught by the Anti-Corruption Bureau of police for allegedly bribing a nominated MLA of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now Bharat Rashtra Samithi) led by Rao to vote for a TDP candidate in MLC elections. Rao accused Naidu of plotting to topple his government. After this incident, Naidu shifted his base from Hyderabad to Amaravati, the capital of Andhra Pradesh.
Interestingly, Rao had also attended the foundation stone laying ceremony of Amaravati at Naidu’s invitation prior to the incident.
Post his release from jail, Reddy joined the Congress in 2017. Relations between Naidu and Rao strained further with Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy capturing power in 2019. Rao attended Jagan’s swearing in ceremony as the chief minister. Jagan reciprocated by attending the inauguration of Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation Project in Telangana.
In 2019, both Rao and Jagan had appeared to have a good time discussing river water issues — a power point presentation was made by the Telangana team during a meeting — and Jagan conceding Rao’s request to hand over four blocks in the secretariat. The BRS government reconstructed the secretariat to give it a grand view overlooking Hussain Sagar lake at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore. But, resolution of other inter-state issues never progressed. In fact, the two governments aggressively pursued irrigation projects on Godavari and Krishna by blaming each other. Rao accused Jagan of diverting Krishna water in large quantities from Pothireddypadu head regulator to irrigate areas outside of river basin.
Andhra Pradesh also forcibly released water from Nagarjuna Sagar project which is within the territorial area of Telangana to meet its requirement on November 30 last year. It was in these circumstances that Revanth Reddy assumed charge in December. Naidu congratulated his elevation. He also invited Revanth Reddy for his swearing in as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh for a fourth term last month. But, Revanth Reddy did not attend as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) which is inimical to the Congress were expected to participate. At a private function, Revanth Reddy hailed Naidu and vowed to work for 18 hours like Naidu, instead of 12 hours that he put in now, to compete with him in development.
Revanth Reddy has targeted Rao on every occasion for mortgaging the interests of Telangana to Andhra Pradesh. Rao had predicted the victory of Jagan-led YSR Congress before the elections in that state. Jagan paid a courtesy call on Rao in Hyderabad when the latter broke his hip bone.
