Srikrishna panel to chalk out action plan today

The Justice BN Srikrishna Committee, set up by the Centre to examine the demands for and against bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, would be meeting in Delhi on Thursday to chalk out its future programme and visits to Hyderabad and other places in the state.

Meanwhile, the state government has appointed a senior civil servant - Rajiv Sharma - as nodal officer of the central committee. Sharma would look after the committee’s requirements in the state.

According to member-secretary VK Duggal, who was on a brief visit to the city to tie up infrastructure and administrative requirements, the committee will be headquartered in Delhi and will not have a permanent office in the state. The committee members will, however, visit the state frequently and the state government will extend administrative support to them during their visits.

“Subject to the approval of committee’s chairman Srikrishna, we have tentatively selected three venues for our utilisation. We propose to utilise the premises of Lake View guest house for receiving small delegations and Jubilee Hall for meeting larger delegations. The MCR Institute for Human Resources Development has also been considered as a standby arrangement,” Duggal told mediapersons here on Wednesday adding that the committee would hold several meetings.

He said the one-month period given to the eight recognised political parties in the state for submitting their representations to the committee was unlikely to be extended. “We have written to all the designated presidents of the eight parties in this regard and hope they will respond within the specified time,” he said.

Besides political parties, he said, there were several interested groups, which would like to represent on the issue and the committee would find time to listen to all of them.

The committee wanted early responses as, given the wide scope of the issue under consideration, the 10-month time available to it for submitting its report “is not much”, Duggal said. Responses to the public notice issued have already started coming in. Individuals who want to make representations could also send through e-mail. Apart from the representations, the committee would examine the available primary and secondary data and also various articles written on the issue that are available in the public domain.