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Tuesday 4 October 2011

Should we have Separate State of Telangana?

People of part of the Andhra Pradesh in the area of Telangana are asking for a separate state of Telangana. Telangana region comprise of 10 districts: Adilabad, Hyderabad, Khammam, Karimnagar, Mahbubnagar, Medak, Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Rangareddy, and Warangal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telangana Telangana region has an area of 114,840 square kilometres (44,340 sq mi), and a population of 35,286,757 (2011 census) which is 41.6% of Andhra Pradesh state population.

Grievances of Telangana proponents

Proponents of a separate Telangana state cite perceived injustices in the distribution of water, budget allocations, and jobs. Within the state of Andhra Pradesh, 68.5% of the catchment area of the Krishna River and 69% of the catchment area of the Godavari River are in the Telangana region. Telangana supporters state that the benefit of irrigation through the canal system under major irrigation projects is accruing substantially, 74.25%, to the Coastal Andhra region, while the share to Telangana is 18.20%. The remaining 7.55% goes to the Rayalaseema region. The state's expenditure on Telangana's major irrigation projects is 18.20% of the total expenditure.
The share of education funding for Telangana ranges from 9.86% in government-aided primary schools to 37.85% in government degree colleges. The above numbers include the expenditure in Hyderabad. Budget allocations to Telangana are generally less than 1/3 of the total Andhra Pradesh budget. There are allegations that in most years, funds allocated to Telangana were never spent. According to Professor Jayashankar only 20% of the total Government employees, less than 10% of employees in the secretariat, and less than 5% of department heads in the Andhra Pradesh government are from Telangana; those from other regions make up the bulk of employment. He also alleged that the state was represented by Telangana chief ministers for only 6 1/2 years out of over five decades of its existence, with no chief minister from the region being in power continuously for more than 2 1/2 years. As per Srikrishna committee on Telangana, Telangana held the position of CM for 10.5 years while Seema-Andhra region held it for 42 years.
Proponents of a separate Telangana state feel that the agreements, plans, and assurances from the legislature and Lok Sabha over the last fifty years have not been honoured, and as a consequence Telangana has remained neglected, exploited, and backward. They allege that the experiment to remain as one state has proven to be a futile exercise and that separation is the best solution.
These demands are everywhere in the world leave aside India. If you consider smaller states there also discrimination exists. If fact it is human tendency to see ill effects first, compare with others and crib or agitate. My parental village is on the bank of river Koyana. The village decided to have an irrigation project by lifting water from the river. Engineers were hired to survey and make a plan for the project. Engineers prepared a plan. The plan recommended irrigating agricultural land in the eastern part of the village. This created rift between villagers having land in eastern and western part. The result was division of village in 2 parts East and west. Moral of the story is agitation for division can end only at individual level. Such demands can stop only when an independent nation is created for every individual. Division is no solution.
There are more demands for division of states and creating new states. These are shown on the map in different colours:  1)Anga Pradesh(Brown), 2)Ladakh (Pink), 3)Harit Pradesh (Dark Green), 4)Maru Pradesh (Dark Grey), 5)Bundelkhand (Dark blue), 6)Bagelkhand (water blue), 7)Purvanchal (Purple), 8)Mithila, 9)Gorkhaland (red), 10)Bodoland (light green), 11)Saurashtra (light grey), 12)Vidarbha (Orange), 13)Telangana (Yellow), 14)Rayalaseema (Dark Pink), 15)Tulu Nadu (Black), 16)Kodagu (sky blue), 17)Kosal (Maroon). Reasons put forward for separate state are common, fundamentally neglected area and communication. These reasons are debatable. Difficulties created by smaller states are more than the problem addressed. Fundamental problem created is imbalance, horse trading, changes in decisions and alike.
There can be a solution for all these without creating separate state and still getting all the advantages of smaller state.  Present system needs to be changed. Let there be zones in every state and let there be constitutional hoses of elected representatives from village, tehsil, district and zones in the state.  Zones shall be made of districts with similar conditions. Cities shall be divided in to tehsils and districts. Bigger city with more than 1 district shall be considered as a zone. A total change is needed in the administrative set up of India
If this system is followed people of Telangana would not ask for a separate state. Many small states may like to merge with neighbouring bigger state. All advantages of small and big state shall be available in this new set up. All aspiring small state shall not press their demand.

11 comments:

@NagPingili said...

Sir,

Thanks for sharing this post via Twitter. Read through your post. Your thoughts on how to better the current administrative units is appreciable. However, Please note that it also calls for good decent constitutional amendments to implement it. And we all know how much time even a simple bill takes is taking to pass out from the Parliament for various political reasons. So we can guess what time a constitutional amendment might take. Right now the demand for smaller states is within the limitations of the existing constitution. One need not amend it to create new states. Most important, as you rightly pointed in your post, it is the implementation that is failing the existing constitutional setup - not that the current state and administrative divisions are too bad. There is no guarantee that your proposed administrative changes will change the country for better with the current mindset and selfish reasons of regional minded leaders.

To give you just one example, Andhra Pradesh is already constitutionally divided into Six zones to limit of developed zones occupy the educational & job opportunities in under developed zones. Yet, there are plenty other-zone people recruited or deputed into under developed zones. By constitution, Hyderabad falls under 6th zone. The powerful Andhra leaders lobbied at the central level to get a 'Presidential Orders' to amend the constitution to accommodate police recruitment from rest of the state not just restricting the jobs to local zone people. The Presidential order was later conveniently interpreted Hyderabad as 'Free Zone' and recruitment in all departments in Hyderabad were filled by the choicest people. It took many a years and agitations and finally Hyderabad is now declared as part of 6th zone by the Supreme Court. This is how the implementation fails in our country.

I am not saying creating a separate state is a magic potion. But it definitely identifies people with common problems & understanding together and makes them one single unit. Most important, all this happens within the existing constitutional setup.

Please go through all the links on this page of my blog to know my views on Telangana issue. http://theopenterrace.blogspot.com/p/telangana.html

Jai Hind!

Anonymous said...

Good one..

Anonymous said...

Great article.
Do they ever think how painful it would be to Sardar Vallabh bhai Patel ? He united whole India so that everyone can progress and lead good lives. Crabs don't live a good life no matter what or how.
We don't need British to divide us. Our own greedy people are enough.
You don't have vote or people support but want to grab power and money, demand a state.
Now I think, may be my street can also be a state and me.....;)

Janahitwadi said...

Anonymous, Thank you. I am happy that you understood what I wish to say. There is no limit for division. Probably when a single individual is left division would stop. There is no problem in this world for which solution cannot be found. Whatever demands and reasons placed by separatists can easily be addressed. It would need some changes in system and we must do that. Tomorrow some one will say a particular area has concentration of Muslims so it should be a separate state. There can be any reason for division. There should be no further division of India on any ground. All Indians must get united and oppose any further division.

@NagPingili said...

Jana,

I posted a detailed comment on countering your views on this issue as well as new states formation that you chose not to publish. Is this the kind of 'Democracy' you advocate? Shame on you. People like you should rather serve Pakistan or China military that censor every anti-view conveniently rather than a democratic national army like India.
I know you will not publish this also.

BTW, don't say that you never censored any comment since the first Anonymous comment "Good one.." is also posted by me to verify what kind of person you are! I have seen so many of your kind of people.

Good bye...

Rahul said...

many of my friends expressed their opinions on interview of ktr. but i feel that kcr is real hero of telangana. in tdp govt. then assembly speaker yanamala ramakrishnudu not allowed the word 'telangana' to speak in assembly. now see the change. from last 60 years andhra andhra industrialists occupied hyderabad. andhra intellectuals insulted telangana culture and heritage and also history and language of telangana. who gets benifits by samykyandra. only andhra industriallists. there is no movement in the world run for samykyam. people always fought for freedom from the dectators. telangana people also fighting to save their language, history, and also to save the future generation. because the future generation cannot get jobs in samykya andra. we want water with canals. we want telangana secretariat. we want telangana ias and ips officers. so seperate state only solution. today state secretariat is loaded with andra intellectuals. so day by day telangana is going to dark ness. thanks to kcr and kavithakka for saving telangana vadam. kavithakka doing a lot. she started bhathukamma. now every telangana woman in villages and towns playing bhathukamma with proudly. what happend to heavy irrigation projects.govt saying one lakh crores invested for water projects in telangana. but how many hectors getting water. what happend to devadula and pranahitha. these projects are not able to completed. because they are not useful in future. crores of money wastage.

Janahitwadi said...

@ Rahul, I understand the problems faced by Telangana people. However I still feel division is no solution. If Telangana is formed people of different district would start fighting and asking for separate state. This may continue till every individual gets a separate nation. I have suggested administrative set up to avoid this. Please go through it (last but 1 paragraph of the article gives link) and rethink on your. I will be grateful to you if you do that and come to a conclusion/opinion. Thank you for sparing your time.

Janahitwadi said...

@ NagPingili: Sorry I didn't see your comment went to spam folder. In fact I don't edit comments. All comments are automatically posted.
As far as your contention of neglecting locals is concerned it's a genuine problem. However, I still believe in that a separate state is no answer. As I posted in my article this way it would continue till every individual becomes a separate Nation. You might have read about Maharashtra Nav Nirman Sena and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. They are opposing North Indians and asking them to leave. A few days back a north Indian Congress leader Shri Sanjay Nirupam said he can stop working of Mumbai if these Senas don't stop opposing North Indians. Telanagana problem goes in to finer details. So you will agree that even after formation of Telangana people will come out that persons in Hydrabad city get employment at the cost of Telangana people. May be districts would start fighting. So separate state is never ending solution unless each individual gets independent nation.
Ideas I placed in the article need constitutional change. It is a long process. It has to be time consuming because unless total thought is given the amendment be with loopholes. Care has to be taken to plug all loopholes.
Implementation is another obstacles. Hence we need an amendment which shall take care of implementation also. Think about the god. Whoever invented the god must get 100s of Nobel prizes. The system is such that without police and judges true religious person behaves in the way need to keep society together.
What is needed is a solution which shall have inherent provision for right implementation.

I will request all those who are fighting for Telangana to concentrate on a solution suitable for whole India. They should take a lead in this matter.

Please don't get irritated because of delay. I just didn't check spam folder which usually I don't as the comments are never edited by me. My idea is not to force my thinking but arrive at a solution suitable for whole nation. Thank you. Jay Hind.

外贸seo said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

this is an wonderful website this says directly about one matter any one can understan wht is in this website

Janahitwadi said...

@ sai anudep Munegeti Thank you. You may help me in translating this and any other article in your mother tongue using unicode font. Thank you

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