Telangana move stalls division plans

Hyderabad: Bifurcation of common institutions listed under Schedule IX and X of the AP Reorganisation Act 2014 remains in limbo after the TS government took back the 253 acres of land on the city outskirts allotted to the AP State Finance Corporation on Thursday.

The Centre-appointed Sheela Bhide committee had failed to bifurcate 85 such institutions between AP and TS during its one-year term that expired last month.

With this, the TS government is making swift moves to take control of all these institutions. The AP government on the other hand is demanding its share in the properties held by these institutions or payment of money accordingly, a demand that is being ruled out by the TS government.

Unless the Centre interferes, bifurcation of these institutions is set to get complicated further. Of the 90 common institutions, the Sheela Bhide committee approved de-merger plans of 60 during its term and sent the approvals to the TS and AP governments.

However, the two governments failed to arrive at a consensus on these de-merger plans. With this, there is no change in the situation and officials and employees of both the states continue to fight every day for control over these institutions.

The AP government has been demanding a share in this property or payment of money as per existing market rate.

“We have submitted repeated representations to both the AP and TS governments on the early bifurcation of these institutions. TS government claims that AP government was not responding, despite repeated reminders, while the AP government accuses TS of taking unilateral decisions on these institutions. Matters are only getting complicated due to the delay,” said S. Vijaya Mohan, chairman, TS Public Sector Employees Federation.

Meanwhile, TS Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma has written to his AP counterpart I.Y.R. Krishna Rao for talks on bifurcation of PSUs, but there has been no response from AP so far on this issue.