The first-ever Chief Secretaries level meeting of two Telugu states held on Monday at APICC, Mangalagiri on bifurcation issues, both sides reached consensus on three issues. The Chief Secretaries of both the states have decided to meet again as they could not reach a consensus on the remaining issues.
The meeting of the committees of officers was led by Telangana CS Shanthi Kumari and AP CS Neerab Kumar, and lasted for over two hours. As part of this meeting, it was learnt that a consensus could not be reached between the two states regarding the distribution of assets in the 9th and 10th schedules.
In addition, it is learnt that a special meeting should be held on electricity arrears two or three times as the dispute between the two states could not reach a consensus on the issues of electricity arrears.
The two states have decided to form a joint committee on the prevention of drugs that are causing problems in both the states. As part of this, this joint committee will be formed with the police and excise departments. In addition, a lengthy discussion was held regarding the division of employees.
In addition, AP has also agreed to refund the additional Rs. 81 crore collected from the Telangana Excise Department. Along with this, both the states have agreed to distribute Rs. 861 crore of labor cess between AP and Telangana.
They have discussed the distribution of assets of the companies in Schedules 9 and 10 of the Bifurcation Act, electricity dues and mutual exchange of employees, which are unresolved. They also discussed the issues that remained undistributed. The discussions held between the two states on the issues of distribution of professional tax and reimbursement of expenses of joint companies have reached a conclusion.
The issue of Rs. 8,000 crore remaining undistributed in the bank accounts of the respective companies regarding Schedules 9 and 10 was also discussed. On July 5 this year, the Chief Ministers of both the states met at Praja Bhavan in Hyderabad on the issues of bifurcation, and as a continuation of this meeting, a high-level committee of officials met on Monday.
Special Chief Secretary of the Finance Department Ramakrishna Rao, Special Chief Secretary of the Home Department Ravi Gupta, Principal Secretary of the Energy Department Sandeep Kumar Sultania, Principal Secretary of the General Administration Department Raghanandan Rao were present from Telangana in this key meeting, while Finance Secretary Piyush Kumar, General Administration Department Suresh Kumar, Babu and others were present from AP.
