TS, AP brawl over 142 common institutions

Home ministry’s order not clear if it is applicable only to APSCHE or to all Schedule X institutions

The Union home ministry’s orders issued on Wednesday, on sharing of movable and immovable assets of APSCHE (Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education) has triggered a fresh fight between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for the control of 142 common institutions listed under Schedule X of the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, which are mostly located in Hyderabad in Telangana State.

The TS government on Thursday speeded up efforts to take control of the assets of the remaining 141 institutes. TS Chief Secretary S. P. Singh convened an emergency meeting with principal secretaries and secretaries of all departments at the Secretariat on Thursday to discuss how to proceed with the take over of the assets of the remaining institutions.

The AP government, on the other hand, is exploring legal options against the Union home ministry’s orders.

The home ministry ruled that assets belonging to a particular institution, the Higher Education Council/APSCHE, listed under Schedule X will belong to the state in which it is located, but cash deposits of such institutions should be shared on the basis of population in the ratio of 52:48 between AP and TS.

Luckily for AP, the APSCHE order did not result in any loss for it because it has no assets. It has only a bank balance of `135 crore, which too benefited AP as it is entitled to 52 per cent share, while TS gets only 48 per cent in the ratio of population.

However, the home ministry was not clear about whether this order is applicable only for APSCHE or to all Schedule X institutions.

The AP government claims that it applies only to APSCHE, while TS argues that it applies to all. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao directed the chief secretary to meet Governor ESL Narasimhan and brief him about the home ministry’s orders. Mr Singh requested the Governor to ask the AP government to honour the home ministry's orders and resolve the bifurcation of the remaining Schedule X institutions in accordance with the bifurcation model suggested for APSCHE.

The order must apply to all Scheduled X institutions and there cannot be a different bifurcation model for different institutions, he said.

He urged the Governor to include this issue in the agenda for the next ministerial meeting of TS and AP, and also conveyed Chief Minister Rao’s proposal to hold a meeting of Chief Ministers of both states at Raj Bhavan to resolve these issues.

THE home ministry said assets belonging to a particular institution, the Higher Education Council (APSCHE) listed under Schedule X will belong to the state in which it is located.