Numerology may decide total number of districts

Hyderabad: Will Telangana have 24 or 27 districts? The suspense over the number of new districts will end on Saturday. The government will hold an all-party meeting on Saturday to take the views of all political parties, which will be followed by Chief Mini-ster K. Chandrasekhar Rao holding a Cabinet meeting in the evening to announce the new districts and approve the draft notification, which will be kept in public domain for a month to seek objections or suggestions.

The government is proposing to create 17 new districts, taking the total to 27, based on the recommendations made by the Cabinet sub-committee appointed for the purpose.

However, suspense continues on whether the number of districts will be 24 or 27. Ever since Mr Rao made an announcement in May this year that the new districts would come into force from Dasara in October, several additions and deletions have been made in the new districts’ list.

The CM had favoured creating 14 new districts all along, taking the total to 24. But three more districts were ad-ded suddenly on August 17, taking the number to 17, after Mr Rao held a marathon meeting at his camp office with the Cabinet sub-committee and senior officials.

According to the latest plan, Adilabad will be divided into three districts (Adilabad, Manc-herial and Nirmal), Karimnagar will be divided into three districts (Karimnagar, Pe-ddapally and Jagityal), Warangal district into four districts (Mahabu-babad, Warangal, Han-makonda and Bhoop-alapally), Medak into three districts (Siddi-pet, Medak and Sanga-reddy), Nizamabad into two (Nizamabad and Kamareddy), Nalgonda into three (Nalgonda, Suryapet and Yadadri), Mahabubnagar into three (Mahabubnagar, Nagarkurnool and Van-aparthy), Khammam into two (Khammam and Kothagudem),  Ranga Reddy district into three (Vikarabad, Shamshabad and Malkajgiri), besides Hyderabad district.

However, it remains to be seen whether the CM will stick with the sub-committee’s proposals on 27 districts or go with his earlier plan of having 24 districts in Telangana. Opposition parties, meanwhile, are already accusing the CM of creating new districts to suit his lucky number of six, by taking the total districts to 24 (2+4=6).