TS waits for districts to figure in Central gazette

Though nearly five months have gone by since new districts were created in TS, the Centre is yet to notify the same in its official gazette.

This is despite the TS government making repeated requests to the Centre in this regard.

The delay in notifying the new districts has led to the state losing out on the Centre’s grants for development of backward areas sanctioned under the Backward Regions Grant Fund.

TS districts are `50 crore each under this grand, every year.

The absence of mention in the Centre’s official gazette is also contributing to administrative problems. There severe shortage of IAS and IPS officers as the Centre grants IAS cadre strength to states based on the number of districts and TS cadre strength continues to remain the same which was determined based on 10 old districts.

The state government had reorganised the existing 10 districts to create 21 new ones and sent the list of new districts to the Centre soon. It requested the Centre to notify the new districts in its official gazette. Till date, that has not happened.

The issue was taken up with the Prime Minister by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and TRS MPs and also Union ministers concerned several times earlier.

The 14th Finance Commission had declared nine out of 10 old districts (all barring Hyderabad) in TS as “backward” and recommended special grants for their development. The Centre has been sanctioning a grant of `450 crore grant every year at `50 crore for each district.

TS special representative in New Delhi S. Venugopala Chary said, “Notifying new districts in Centre’s gazette is currently under process. The issue is pending with the Union home ministry; we are pursuing the case vigorously to check further delay.”