Vijayawada: Finance Minister P Keshav said that AP and Telangana governments are working to resolve bifurcation problems following negotiations between the chief ministers of the two states.
He said two high-level committees, one comprising ministers and the other senior officials, had been constituted to look into the outstanding issues.
Keshav told the AP state assembly that they would resolve majority of the outstanding issues arising from the bifurcation of the state, through negotiations.
Replying to questions from TDP members during Question Hour on Tuesday, the minister said the state government had expressed its willingness to allow transfer of employees who wanted to migrate to Telangana.
He said they have already initiated a process to relieve the employees and are awaiting confirmation from the Telangana government. He said the two state governments have accepted requests for interstate transfers of employees on humanitarian grounds.
The minister explained that 1,942 employees applied for transfer from AP to Telangana and 1,447 employees applied for transfer from Telangana to AP. He said they have already relieved 122 gazetted officers following the Telangana government’s agreement to admit them into service.
He said 61 officers have already reported to the Telangana government and the process of deputation of the remaining officials would also be completed soon.
He said Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu took the initiative to resolve the pending bifurcation issues by meeting Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy in July. He said a group of ministers including Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, D Sridhar Babu and Ponnam Prabhakar of Telangana and Anagani Satya Prasad, Kandula Durgesh and BC Janardhan Reddy of AP had been constituted to discuss the various outstanding issues since the reorganization.
Similarly, a high-level committee comprising chief secretaries and special secretaries has also been constituted to iron out differences, Keshav said. “The committee of officials has held initial discussions and is expected to meet again to finalize a few issues. The committee will submit its report to the committee of ministers for further negotiations. Subsequently, a report will be submitted for final approval of the ministers chief of the respective state,” Keshav said.
TDP member Kuna Ravi Kumar said that the Telangana government does not allow non-indigenous Telangana employees to be admitted in its services and it would be better if the government removes such employees from the application list to expedite the process. He added that several other employees had been waiting for many years to be able to settle in their home countries. He said several AP employees had already been repatriated to Telangana in three spells, but all of them were only natives of Telangana. He asked the minister to carefully examine the matter in order to resolve it quickly.