TS-AP meet on bifurcation fails

The meeting of the chief secretaries of TS and AP on Friday achieved little progress on resolving bifurcation-related issues.

TS Chief Secretary S.K. Joshi and his AP counterpart Dinesh Kumar met after a long gap to discuss issues like transfer of employees, sharing funds and division of AP Bhavan at Delhi. Principal secretaries, state reorganisation, K. Rama Krishna Rao (TS) and L Premchandra Reddy (AP) also attended the meeting.

There is a dispute between the states on electricity charges and employee’s salaries among others. The chief secretaries directed the Mr Rao and Mr Reddy to meet frequently with officials concerned to resolve the issues. The chief secretaries decided to direct the committee constituted to complete the division of AP Bhavan to meet at the earliest.

Regarding TS-origin employees in AP, and those from AP working in TS, who want to return to their home state, the chief secretaries decided to tune the orders on mutual transfers if necessary.

Both states decided to seek HC permission to make temporary allotment of deputy superintendents of police (DSPs), additional police superintendents and non-cadre police superintendents.

Officials said the issue of handing over the AP Assembly and Legislative Council buildings and Secretariat buildings in Hyderabad to Telangana state did not come up for discussion. They said the buildings come under the purview of the Speakers and the government cannot take a decision.