Telangana staff seethes over President's assent to local status'

Hyderabad: President Pranab Mukherjee's assent to amending Article 371(D) of the Constitution according “local status” to AP employees and people in TS shifting to AP by June, 2017 is snowballing into a big controversy.

Telangana employees have threatened to launch an agitation to protest the move, arguing that this gives scope for AP-natives in TS to secure “double local status” in both TS and AP for their children, which will hit the prospects of Telangana students and job aspirants.

Employees demanded that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao should intervene and take corrective measures to protect the interests of Telangana.
“It was the responsibility of the Centre and President to seek the opinion of TS government before an amendment. But the notification was issued unilaterally,” said A. Padma Chary, president, Telangana Udyogula Sangham.

TS employees argue that large numbers of AP-native employees and people and their children, who settled in Hyderabad became locals of Telangana based on their education done here.

Anyone who studied in a particular region for four consecutive years out of previous seven years of study from Class V to XII in Undivided AP became locals of that region as per Article 371 (D).

They said that the Centre's latest notification according ‘local status’ to all those who shift to AP would enable them secure AP's local status too. “This will give scope for their children to appear for recruitment exams besides admissions in professional colleges in both the states. This is totally unfair,” said V. Srinivas Goud, Telangana employees’ leader.

However, AP employees rubbished these claims saying that the AP government is yet to issue guidelines for determining 'local status'. “Just because the state was bifurcated, they cannot lose their constitutional rights. What's wrong if they claim local status here?” asked P. Ashok Babu, president, APNGOs Association.