Ending a decade of deadlock, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have decided to set up two exclusive committees with ministers and senior officials, respectively, to discuss the unresolved issues and prepare a roadmap to resolve them amicably.
“A high-level committee with Chief Secretary-level officials from both sides will be set up soon. The committee will meet within two weeks and try to resolve as many issues as possible. If they are not able to find solutions, they will be referred to a committee comprising ministers from the two States,” Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, Deputy Chief Minister of Telangana, has said.
Addressing a press conference here on Saturday after the much-anticipated meeting between Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, he said that the two Chief Ministers would step in later to sort out any unresolved issues thereoff.
The two sides have decided to approach the Union Government jointly and ask it to honour all the promises made in the Bifurcation Act 2014.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, along with a few of his Cabinet colleagues, met his Telangana counterpart A Revanth Reddy and his deputy Bhatti Vikramarka Mallu. Top bureaucrats from the respective States also took part in the discussions held at Jyotirao Phule Prajabhavan on Saturday.
The meeting, held for about two hours, discussed issues such as the split of assets notified in Schedules 9 and 10 of the Andhra Pradesh Re-organisation Act (2014) and the division of liabilities, including the loans raised from international agencies.
Key issues
The issue of giving Telangana five out of the seven villages allotted to Andhra Pradesh at the time of the bifurcation was also discussed. The villages were given keeping in view the likely inundation of the area once the Polavaram Project is completed.
Another key issue was a demand raised by Andhra Pradesh regarding dues of ₹7,000 crore for the power that Telangana used in the early years of the State’s formation. However, the Telangana team rejected the claim, asserting that the State had no outstanding dues. The Telangana side also reportedly turned down an appeal by Andhra Pradesh to give them a few buildings in Hyderabad.
Almost all of the bifurcation issues remained unresolved even after 10 years of the division, with the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government in Telangana and the TDP and YSRCP governments in Andhra Pradesh not keeping a cordial relationship during 2014-24.
After the Telugu Desam Party alliance retained power in Andhra Pradesh in the recent elections, the situation has changed for good overnight as Revanth Reddy was once groomed by Naidu in the undivided Andhra Pradesh.