All-party Meeting Okays Reorganization of Districts; KCR Says It’s Not Final

Hyderabad: The all-party meeting held on Saturday in principle extended support to the reorganization of districts in Telangana. However, the meeting highlighted several lapses in the present draft on 27 new districts and suggested measures to be incorporated.

The TRS government has decided to call for all-party meeting once again before taking a final decision on new districts amid the ongoing protest with demands for new districts with their towns as headquarters.

Reiterating the new districts will come into force from Dassera, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhara Rao said: “The State government will issue draft notification on August 22. We’ll call for all-party meeting once or twice before draft notification. There’s always scope for changes in the present proposal before taking a final decision. We have been receiving several demands on new districts, but all can’t be fulfilled.”

I don’t think this is final. There’s always scope for changes in districts proposal. For instance, there’s some confusion about Warangal. The government is not going unilateral on Warangal and Hanamkonda. Public can report to the district collector about their grievances and demands. I assure people of Telangana that new districts will be created on the grounds of administrative ease and convenience to people in addition to considering the area and population as well. TRS promised new districts in election manifesto also.

With an objective of eliciting views of major political parties on reorganization of districts, TRS government has convened the all-party meeting. The two meetings were scheduled on Saturday to fast-track the government process of creating new administrative units and bring them into being from Dassera.

Allaying fears about formation of new districts, KCR further said: “I don’t think this is final. There’s always scope for changes in districts proposal. For instance, there’s some confusion about Warangal. The government is not going unilateral on Warangal and Hanamkonda. Public can report to the district collector about their grievances and demands. I assure people of Telangana that new districts will be created on the grounds of administrative ease and convenience to people in addition to considering the area and population as well. TRS promised new districts in election manifesto also.”

Responding to a question on agreement with Maharashtra on projects, KCR said: “Telangana government will sign a final agreement with Maharashtra on August 23 and this will be a historical pact. Five members from each state will have representation on the common board in addition to a representative from the Centre. Two chief ministers from both the states will also be part of the board.”

While highlighting the good practices of Telangana government, KCR said: “We have also signed an agreement with Chhattisgarh on power. We have good relations with Karnataka on water sharing also.”

The all-party meeting also approved criterion of 1.5lakh population for urban mandal and 35,000 population for rural mandal.

K Keshava Rao from TRS, Shabbir Ali and Bhatti Vikramarka from Congress, L Ramana and Ravula Chandrashekhar Reddy from T-TDP, Ramachandra Rao and Malla Reddy from BJP, Tammineni Veerabhadram, J Ranga Reddy from CPM, Chada Venkata Reddy from CPI, Akbaruddin Owaisi from MIM, participated in the all party meeting.