Telangana issues draft notification for new districts

Government seeks to create 17 new districts for public and administrative convenience, and invited people to give their feedbacks

Telangana government on Monday issued draft notification on new districts that would be would be created by dividing nine of the existing 10 districts excluding Hyderabad.

The government has invited people to share their feedback on its proposals within a month after which the new districts will be notified with or without further modifications later in October this year.

Telangana government seeks to create 17 new districts for public and administrative convenience among other reasons.

Explaining the government's intent behind creation of smaller districts at an all party meeting on Saturday, chief minister K Chandrasekhara Rao said while the average size of a district's population across 683 districts in India stood at 1.8 million while the same in Telangana it was 3.6 million.

As a part of this reorganisation exercise the government also proposed 15 new revenue divisions taking the total number to 60 revenue divisions and 46 new mandals taking the total number of mandals to 505 in the state.

Two of the 17 new districts would carry the names of Kakatiya University professor late Jayasankar, who was revered as the ideologue of the Telangana statehood movement and Komaram Bheem, a Gond hero who led an early tribal revolt in the erstwhile Nizam state, while other new districts will carry the name a major town located in their jurisdiction.

All the major opposition parties by and large backed the governments' proposal on new districts even though people from few pockets raised their opposition either asking for a district that was not under the government consideration or questioned the way an existing district was sought to be divided.

For instance, the government seeks to create a separate district of which forms a contiguous part of Telangana's second largest city Warangal.

The authorities have created a separate portal with the details and the boundaries of the proposed districts. People can convey their suggestions or objections on-line through this portal.