Plan to make new districts in Telangana put on hold
The new districts have to be created by June 2, the second anniversary of TS Formation.
Hyderabad: The process of creating new districts in Telangana has come to a halt due to a change in policy of the TRS government.
In September 2015, the government had appointed a five-member committee headed by the chief secretary to make recommendations on formation of new districts.
The committee was supposed to submit its report by this month-end but the government has asked it to keep the report on hold anticipating the Centre’s approval in increasing Assembly seats as envisaged in Section 26 of AP Reorganisation Act, 2014.
The Act promises to increase Assembly seats 119 to 153 in TS and from 175 to 225 in AP. As per earlier plans, the new districts have to be created by June 2, the second anniversary of TS Formation.
The government feels that new districts can be created scientifically only after the reorganisation of Assembly constituencies. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is hopeful the Centre would increase Assembly seats in both TS and AP before the 2019 elections.
In fact, Mr Rao and AP CM N.Chandrababu Naidu had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi in February separately and sought increase in Assembly seats.
As a follow-up to this, TS chief secretary Rajiv Sharma had written to the Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi seeking increase in Assembly seats on February 19.
"The committee has obtained reports from all the district collectors on various parameters over the availability of government lands, buildings, hospitals, universities, colleges, schools and other infrastructure facilities in their respective districts.
Based on this, recommendations on creation of new districts out of these existing districts were readied. But the reorganisation of Assembly constituencies would alter the jurisdiction of some districts due to which it was decided to hold the process till clarity emerges on Assembly seats,” said a senior official of the committee.
He said, country-wide, on an average, each district has a population of 19 lakh whereas the average population per district in TS stood at 35 lakh making it a fit case for carving out at least 14 new districts to the existing 10.