AP seeks Rs 29k crore for Capital city development at Delhi meet

VIJAYAWADA: A secretarial level meeting was held in New Delhi on Tuesday to discuss pending bifurcation issues between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Fourteen major issues were discussed at the meeting chaired by Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla and of which seven were related to the pending bilateral issues between AP and TS and the other seven were related to Andhra Pradesh.

On behalf of AP, Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma, along with senior officials MT Krishna Babu, Karikal Valaven and Praveen Prakash, attended the meeting, while Telangana was represented by Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and other senior officials.

During the meeting which lasted for nearly two hours, it is learnt that the State delegation urged the Centre to release Rs 29,000 crore for the capital city development as recommended by the Sivaramakrishnan Committee as Rs 2,500 crore released for the purpose is not sufficient. Further, Rs 20,000 crore was sought as a grant for the development of backward districts as assured in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014  The Andhra Pradesh delegation urged the Centre to implement the Sheila Bedi Committee recommendations and bifurcate 89 institutions listed in Schedule IX of the AP Reorganisation Act.

However, the Telangana delegation only agreed to 53 and following which the Centre asked it to explain its objections. According to sources, Telangana officials complained against their AP counterparts that for every other issue, AP is taking legal recourse and dragging it on.

The TS officials emphasised that the division of assets of the institutions in Schedule IX should be done as per the definition for ‘headquarters’ given by the Centre in 2017 and only those in the headquarters should be divided.

On the issue of division of the institutions listed in Schedule X of the AP Reorganisation Act, both the States failed to come to a consensus and it was decided to seek legal opinion on the matter.Sources said the issue of dues to Andhra Pradesh power utilities by Telangana also came up for discussion. The AP delegation sought setting up of a Central Agriculture University in the State as per the assurances given in the AP Reorganisation Act. With regard to tax incentives, it was decided to refer the matter to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.