The Telangana Electricity Employees Joint Action Committee (TEEJAC) have stepped up their protest against a supplementary report of the Justice DM Dharmadhikari Committee, which allocated 655 employees from different power utility companies in Andhra Pradesh to Telangana.
This, the JAC says, is a 'complete u-turn' from the previous final report of the Committee, which had asked the exact same number of employees (655) to be moved from Telangana to Andhra Pradesh.
Stating that injustice was done to Telangana in the supplementary report, employee associations began a relay hunger strike at Vidyut Soudha in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
The issue
The long-standing issue relates to 1,157 employees, who were previously relieved by the Telangana government, after bifurcation of the state in 2014, on the basis of their place of birth and other factors, which suggested that they were native to Andhra Pradesh.
While the employees who were allocated to Andhra Pradesh said that it was unfair to have relieved them based on their origin, staff in Telangana said it will ensure employment opportunities to the natives of the state.
After multiple sides moved the Supreme Court, it appointed the one-man Justice DM Dharmadhikari committee, which submitted its final report in December 2019. The report suggested that 655 of the 1,157 relieved employees in Telangana be allocated to Andhra Pradesh, following which they were relieved by the Telangana government in January 2020.
Countering this, Andhra Pradesh filed a review plea, claiming that it cannot absorb such a huge number of employees and create posts and pay their salaries. Following this, a supplementary report by the committee, which came out earlier this month, stated that the exact same number (655) of employees be relieved from Andhra Pradesh and sent to Telangana.
Of these 655 employees, 71 had been identified by the Dharmadhikari committee based on personal grounds like medical reasons, the residence of spouse etc., because of which they wished to move from Andhra Pradesh to Telangana. The remaining 584 employees have been identified by the Andhra Pradesh power companies, said Keshava Reddy, who was relieved from the TSSPDCL (Telangana State Southern Power Distribution Company Limited), where he had been working as an Executive Engineer.
"We were relieved earlier in January, and haven't received salaries since then. We are hoping to receive our re-posting orders from Andhra Pradesh at least now, so we can join work in a few days," he said.
Keshava Reddy added that both states have been ordered by the committee to complete the process of absorbing the allocated employees and bear their pending salaries as well. "Justice Dharmadhikari said that they would invite contempt of court if they fail to complete the process as per the committee's final directions before March 30," he said, sounding optimistic that the long-standing dispute will end soon in the coming days.
Why Telangana JAC is protesting
Telangana is firm in its stand. "We will not take the employees (from Andhra Pradesh). The Telangana agitation for separate statehood was fought on the issue of employment to natives here. It feels counterproductive to accept Andhra natives. It's a burden for us as well, not only for Andhra," Satyam Kota, a member of the JAC, told TNM.
"We have accepted 71 members (out of 655 from Andhra Pradesh) as there are genuine cases. For example, their spouses work in Telangana. But the remaining 578 members must be absorbed by the Andhra Pradesh government," he said.
The JAC now plans to step up its protest and has already submitted a representation to D Prabhakar Rao, the Chairman and Managing Director of the Telangana Generation Corporation Limited (TSGENCO).
"The supplementary report is a complete u-turn. It feels like everything has gone back to the start. We will also have trouble with recruitment and promotion of employees native to Telangana, which is why we agitated in the first place," Satyam said.
"The TSGENCO management has assured us that they won't accept these employees and has written to the committee. The ball is now in the Andhra government's court," he added.
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