'United AP with special steps best way forward'

Justice Srikrishna Committee has recommended keeping Andhra Pradesh united with Constitutional and Statutory measures for empowerment of the Telangana region "is the best way forward" while creating a separate state can be the "second best" option to tackle the statehood demand.

These are the two options among the six given by the five-member committee headed by former Supreme Court Judge B N Srikrishna which submitted its report to the Centre last week after holding wide-ranging consultations across Andhra Pradesh since February last year.

The Committee itself found that the other four options -- maintaining status quo, bifurcating the state into Seemandhra and Telangana with Hyderabad as Union Territory and the states having their own capitals, bifurcation into Rayala- Telangana and coastal Andhra regions with Hyderabad as part of Rayala-Telangana and bifurcation into Seemandhra and Telangana with enlarged Hyderabad metropolis as a separate Union Territory -- made by it are not practicable.

It was also conscious of the possible opposition that may come from different quarters even to its two best options.

The committee recognised that the Telangana statehood demand is an emotional issue in the region and felt that the option of maintaining status quo could give a "fillip to the Maoist movement".

The report, eagerly awaited by the people of the state and elsewhere, was today made public by the Home Ministry even as Minister P Chidambaram met leaders of political parties from the state and promised them that the Government wants to find a "just, honourable and practicable" solution that has the widest measure of support among all stakeholders.

Recommending keeping Andhra Pradesh united with Constitutional and Statutory measures for socio-economic development and political empowerment of Telangana region, the committee suggested creation of a statutorily-empowered Telangana Regional Council to be headed by an MLA with cabinet rank.

"The Committee considers that unity is in the best interest of all the three regions of the state as internal partitions would not be conducive to providing sustainable solutions to the issues at hand," the two-volume 461-page report said.

In this option, it is proposed to keep the state united and provide constitutional/statutory measures to address the core socio-economic concerns about development of Telangana region.

"This can be done through the establishment of a statutory and empowered Telangana Regional Council with adequate transfer of funds, functions and functionaries in keeping with the spirit of Gentlemen's Agreement of 1956."