Andhra Pradesh decides to pile pressure on Centre

Hyderabad: Armed with the Supreme Court judgement, the AP government has decided to pile pressure on the Centre on sharing of the assets of institutions listed in the 10th Schedule of AP Reorganisation Act without further delay.

According to a previous judgement of the Supreme Court on the issue, AP chief secretary S.P. Tucker has written to his Telangana counterpart to discuss about the sharing of assets of these institutions as directed by the apex court, so as to resolve the issue.

But the Telangana government did not respond to the letters of the AP chief secretary. Then, the AP government wrote to the Union home ministry, requesting it to intervene.

Responding to the AP government’s request, a joint secretary to Union ministry has arranged a meeting with the chief secretaries of both state governments.

The Telangana government told the Centre that it had filed a review petition on the Supreme Court judgement on sharing of assets of these institutions and until the Supreme Court gave its verdict on their review petition, a discussion could not be held as it would be sub judice.

The AP government has told the Union home ministry that the review petition filed by the Telangana government in the Supreme Court was not admitted till that time, and as such there should be no problem discussing the matter. The matter did not proceed however.

The Supreme Court gave a judgement on Thursday, rejecting the review petition filed by the Telangana government, and again directing TS and AP to share the assets of these institutions at a 58:42 ratio.

By this judgement, the AP government got bold and decided to put pressure on the central government to resolve this issue at the earliest. The AP government would soon write to the Centre in this respect.

The Supreme Court also supported the AP government's argument on sharing of these assets on a population basis. By this, the AP government will get more than Rs 21,000 crore.