Telangana, AP still bicker on value of Gajularamaram land piece

Hyderabad: A 270-acre land in Gajularamaram on the city outskirts belonging to the AP state financial corporation has become a bone of contention between the TS and AP governments. Talks are the way forward.

Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan had advised the two states to resolve bifurcation-related issues through dialogue instead of approaching courts, and the states had agreed to hold joint meetings and resolve the issues amicably.

Two meetings had been held at Raj Bhavan this month where ministers from both the states held talks in the presence of the governor and reached an understanding over bifurcation of nine common institutions listed under Schedule IX of AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. However, the APSFC bifurcation tussle took the situation back to square one.

The TS government is accusing the AP government of inflating the value of the land with a “malafide intention” to secure a major share from TS when Schedule IX institutions will be bifurcated. TS argues that while the actual price of 270 acres of land in Gajularamaram is Rs 108 crore, the APSFC executive committee which has a majority directors of AP origin has inflated the rate to Rs 300 crore and unilaterally submitted this to the Centre for bifurcation.

“On the one hand, the AP government talks about resolving bifurcation related issues through talks. On the other, it is encouraging the executive committees of major coprorations like APSFC and APMDC to take unilateral decisions on bifurcation without the knowledge and consent of the Telangana government. This will only result in a confrontation and stalemate,” said irrigation minister T. Harish Rao, who is part of the TS committee holding talks with the AP committee to resolve bifurcation-related issues.”

TS employees associations have already blocked the APSFC executive committee meetings twice earlier, arguing that the meetings should be held after giving due representation to TS members because the existing body has only one TS member out of 12 and Telangana would not get justice from this arrangement.

TS officials are shocked to find APSFC holding the EC meeting again without the knowledge of TS and sending the bifurcation proposal to the Centre by inflating the land value and showing land as capital investment.

TS argues that the assets belonging to these institutions should be allotted to a state based on their geographical location but AP is opposing it and demanding a share in assets in proportion to the ratio of population of 52:48 between AP and TS respectively. According to this, TS has to put an amount equal to 52 per cent of the total asset value and TS argues that the land rate was inflated to secure more funds from TS.

Telangan seeks governor’s peace push in demerger
The TS government wants scrapping of demerger proposals of Schedule IX institutions submitted by the Centre-appointed Sheela Bhide Committ-ee. It wants the governor to mediate between TS and AP to finalise the demerger proposals afresh since the committee’s proposals were based on proposals approved by executive committees of Schedule IX institutions, in which AP-origin directors are a majority.

The committee was constituted by the Centre to bifurcate 89 common institutions listed under Schedule IX of AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. Of them, 80 are located in Telanga-na, almost all in Hyderabad, while only nine are in AP. If geographical location is taken as criterion, AP argues that it would suffer huge losses.

However, the committee failed to complete the task due to a tussle between TS and AP governments over sharing of assets of these institutions. The committee in it’s over one year term, which ended in August 2015, could submit demerger proposals of only 59 institutions, which are mostly small ones with fewer assets. It could not touch major corporations like APSFC, APMDC, APSRTC etc which have assets worth thousands of crores.  in the form of huge chunk of lands and buildings in and around Hyderabad.

The Centre again restored the committee in September 2016 all of a sudden, which the TS government has opposed. The committee's term will end in February 2017. However, with no consensus on the committee, the governor stepped in and convinced both the governments to hold talks and settle the disputes amicably.