Chandrababu Naidu wants truce panel to settle disputes between Telangana, AP

Hyderabad: The AP Cabinet decided on Monday to urge Prime Minister Narendra Modi to constitute a committee to resolve the series of disputes arising between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The Cabinet, meeting with AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in the chair, wanted the Governor, the two Chief Ministers, the Union home minister and a couple of senior Central officials

The Chief Minister directed officials to identify excess staff in their departments. Though the Kamalnathan committee is expected to make the final allocation of employees by the end of March, AP feels that it has been given more employees as part of “order to serve” because of which it faces a heavier salary burden.

The AP government will urge the Centre to allocate the excess staff to Telangana as most of them are natives of Telangana.

Chief secretary I.Y.R Krishna Rao reportedly said that though the AP government had written to the Telangana government to absorb the excess staff from AP, there was no response.

If this was not done, the Cabinet felt, the Telangana government that is facing a staff shortage is likely to go on a recruitment drive and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao would take credit for it. AP, meanwhile, would be stuck with excess staff.

Mr Naidu will go to Delhi on February 26 to meet Mr Modi to lobby for more funds. It is learnt that Mr Modi did not give any assurance on providing a package during their meeting on Sunday.