AP UNDECIDED OVER SPLIT ACT SHORTCOMINGS

Though the deadline to lodge complaints with the President over any inconsistencies regarding the AP Reorganisation Act expires on June 2, 2017, the AP government remains undecided whether to do so.

Of all the Sections of the Bifurcation Act, Section 108, says: “If any difficulty arises in giving effect to the provisions of this Act, the President may, by order do anything not inconsistent with such provisions which appears to him to be necessary or expedient for the purpose of removing the difficulty.”

It adds: “Provided that no such order shall be made after the expiry of a period of three years from the appointed day (June 2, 2014).”

Though there is only one month left for the expiry of this deadline, so far neither AP nor the TS government have specifically utilised this special provision.

Chief Adviser to the TS government and former Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma, who played a key role on behalf of the Union government during bifurcation, said, “We have no issues, nor did we seek removal of any difficulty in the Act during the last three years. Whatever grievances we had, we were able to sort them out with the Centre.”

AP government adviser Parakala Prabhakar too said, “There are various ways to deal with the problems we face, most of the issues are being resolved with political will. We have not yet decided to lodge a formal complaint to the President on any specific issue.” However, some TD functionaries have met Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and represented to him to take up a few pending issues before Section 108 lapses on June 2, 2017.

For example, in the Bifurcation Act it was mentioned that Central government considers Polavaram Project as national project and will bear all cost etc. and it was specifically mentioned in the Section as ‘for irrigation’ only and not for the power component.

Due to this explicit provision, the Centre had announced that it will bear the cost only to the extent of irrigation and not for power generation.