Long road ahead for Hyderabad to become Union Territory

The process of creating a Union Territory is as lengthy as that of creating a new state. If Hyderabad, designated the common capital of the bifurcated AP, is to be designated a Union Territory, the Centre will have to enact legislation for this purpose or combine it with the States Reorganisation Bill that will have to be passed for Telangana to become a recognised state. Areas to be brought under the UT will have to be identified and notified in the Bill.

Next, an entry must be made to the first schedule in the Constitution about the new UT. An administrator will then be appointed by the Centre, who will have an adviser and a team of secretaries to help him/her administer the UT.

“In the case of Chandigarh, which is a Union Territory, the governments of Punjab and Haryana had deputed equal number of IAS officers to the team of secretaries,” a senior Central government official said.
 

The secretaries look after key departments such as finance, urban development, education and health.

Senior state officials are clueless about how the Centre is going to propose to administer Hyderabad. The police will be under the control of the Telangana government if the area is not declared a Union Territory, and the movements of elected representatives of the other state, including that of its Chief Minister, will be governed by the police of Telangana state, one official explained.

With regard to the Secretariat, the general view is that nothing much will change, with blocks being allocated to each state. “The present Chief Minister may continue in the same block while another block could be converted into the CMO of Telangana or vice-versa,” said an official.

There may not be a problem with the Assembly also, according to a legislature official.  “One state can use the existing House while the other State can make use of the old Assembly building. Since the Legislative Council has only one building, they can consider holding sessions at different times or make some arrangement elsewhere,” the official said.

Uncertainty over limits of UT status

A senior bureaucrat involved in the process of creating Telangana state at the Centre said, “The AP Reorganisation Bill 2013 will clearly specify the number of years of stay and pursue of studies for a particular period to determine the local status of migrants in the Telangana state.”

There had been a general feeling among migrants, employees and businessmen from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions that the Centre would control the city’s administration when AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh had announced that Hyderabad would be the common capital for 10 years.

Sources, however, said that the Congress Central leadership was aware of these limitations and played it safe by buying time on the contentious issue.

“They (Congress leaders) do not want the upbeat mood in Telangana to be spoiled with the declaration of a UT status,” the sources added.

As an option, the Centre is considering according UT status to the city with a specific mention of a time frame of 10 years on condition that it will be part of the Telangana state thereafter.  The second option is to leave it to the Telangana  government to administer.

“In such a case it is equal to living in a rented house,” said a senior state bureaucrat.

Sources also said there was no clarity on whether to restrict the UT status, if accorded, to the GHMC limits or extend it to the HMDA.

SOURCE:

DC