An atmosphere of panic here, say Seemandhra employees

The News Minute| May 23, 2014| 7.15 pm IST

Andhra Pradesh has been divided. Now, it appears that the pettiness over who belongs where has now begun. One wonders, is it necessary.

Telangana Rashtra Samiti chief K Chandrashekar Rao seems to be making good on his past declarations that only people of Telangana must remain in the newly formed state. KCR has been issuing daily threats demanding that all Seemandhra employees working in the state secretariat, would have to go back.

The secretariat is located in Hyderabad, which is now located within Telangana.

"Ours would be the most employee-friendly government. No Telangana employee should be worried about a Seemandhra employee usurping his job. We will not allow any such injustice to be meted out to them," KCR said in Hyderabad on Thursday.

When the state of Andhra Pradesh was first formed, on the basis of a Gentleman’s Agreement, the employees of the Andhra Pradesh Secretariat were taken in a Seemandhra and Telangana ratio of 52:48.

There are 1865 officer level employees working in the State Secretariat, of which, 1060 hail from Seemandhra and 805 from Telangana. There are as many as 4,479 posts in the Secretariat (including officers and non-officer level people) of which only 3,038 positions have been filled. Out of this 3038, 1,771 are from the Seemandhra region. It is this 1,771 people that KCR is targeting.

Moreover, the Telangana Secretariat Officers’ union has objected to 193 employees assigned to Telangana, who it claims, hail from Seemandhra.
KCR has promised to set up war rooms to trace Seemandhra employees claiming to be from Telangana.

"We are setting up a war room to combat the menace of Seemandhra employees producing fake domicile and nativity certificates to remain in Telangana. The Telangana employees must be vigilant and prepare the list in their respective department to show who is from Seemandhra and who is from Telangana,” KCR said.

Sarath Chandra has been working in the AP Labour department office inside the state secretariat for the past 12 years. Hailing from Prakasam district of Seemandhra, Chandra is one of those employees from Seemandhra who have been asked to leave their jobs in Telangana. “There is an atmosphere of panic here. Many people are ready to leave as they don’t want to take any risk. But there are others like me who don’t want to leave, my children study in Hyderabad.”

Like Sarath Chandra, there are many employees who have studied in Telangana, lived in Telangana and now work in Telangana. They fear that if they now return to Seemandhra, they could be treated as outsiders there. Another employee who did not wish to be named said, "There are some who are all set to retire, others whose family members have health issues and are being treated in Hyderabad, are we all supposed to just leave?"

Telangana Congress leader Madhu Yashki says KCR is trying to create further divisions to camouflage some of his failures. “He has made too many promises that are not constitutionally viable. He has promised reservations for Muslims, how can that be achieved? "

"This hue and cry to make Seemandhra employees leave their jobs is simply to divert attention. TRS should know that every employee has a constitutional right, and that right has to be respected,” Yashki adds.

The Seemandhra Secretariat Employees Forum says this is injustice and many employees who were born and brought up in Telangana have been asked to leave simply because their parents hailed form Seemandhra.

With the fight between KCR and Chandrababu Naidu peaking over where employees will go, it looks the divisions will only deepen with time.