Fred Allen was one of America’s most famous comedian and radio show hosts in the 1940s and 1950s. In one of his shows, while delving into the nature of committees, he defined them in his typical dismissive style as a group of men who can do nothing individually but as a group decide that nothing can be done. With the Srikrishna Committee (SKC) providing several options on the situation in Andhra Pradesh with respect to the demand for a separate Telangana state, one can’t help but wonder if the reaction of the people of Andhra Pradesh to the committee report will be similar to the views of Fred Allen.
The uniqueness of the Telangana agitation
The demand for Telangana is unique as far as the history of various struggles for new states are concerned. States formed after the reorganisation along linguistic lines in 1956, such as Gujarat in 1960 and Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand in 2000, have had a common theme of being far away from the capital cities and hence had a comparatively less trickle-down effect. Even among the ongoing agitations of Gorkhaland, Vidarbha and Bundelkhand, the Telangana struggle is the only such agitation which has the capital city within its area.
Though the Srikrishna Committee has articulated six main scenarios to resolve the situation in Andhra Pradesh, it has found only three of them practicable. The feasible options presented were: (a) Bifurcation of the state into Seemandhra and Telangana, with enlarged Hyderabad metropolis as a separate Union Territory (b) Bifurcation of the state into Telangana, with Hyderabad as its capital, and Seemandhra, and (c) United Andhra Pradesh with definite constitutional/statutory measures for empowerment of Telangana.
Analysing the options
In the committee’s view, the best option that would be workable to a majority of the people would be that of a united Andhra Pradesh with definite constitutional/statutory measures for the empowerment of Telangana. In this scenario, with a sizeable 42 MPs, the state’s lobbying power at the Centre will continue to be immense. The state will also have a larger capability in mobilising resources to combat the Maoist menace. Though Andhra Pradesh has 16 of the 72 Naxalite-affected districts, it has been consistently ranked as the best in combating this internal threat.
As a part of this option, the committee suggests to establish a Telangana Regional Council to deal with planning and economic development, apart from additional confidence-building measures such as more political representation in leadership positions for the legislators of the Telangana region.(Click for table)
The second-best option, according to the committee, is that of a separate Telangana with Hyderabad as its capital and a Seemandhra formed from the merging of Coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions with a new capital. The expectation on the political leadership of Telangana to perform will be immense from the people of the region. While an expectation of greater accountability from its leaders will always benefit the area, the risk of facing political instability as a result of electoral dissatisfaction leading to fractured verdicts cannot be ruled out. The fear is that Telangana could then become like Jharkhand, which has failed to impress in most areas of governance with eight chief ministers in the last ten years, besides being under President’s Rule twice. The internal security problems created by the Maoists could also hamper growth and development in a separate Telangana state.
For the Telangana state to be successful, a revenue stream such as Hyderabad, which contributes almost 50 per cent to the modern services GDP of the region, will need to be present to create a trickle-down effect for the hinterlands. As Telangana is land-locked, it would be better to leverage the proximity of Hyderabad to build a corridor of service sector industries. The region of Andhra will need to increase its manufacturing base by leveraging the newly created capacities of the Krishnapatnam port and power sector-related growth from the gas findings of the Krishna-Godavari basin. Moreover, the surplus revenues generated from electricity in the coastal region will no longer need to be subsidised to the power-deficit regions of Telangana, which consume 60 per cent of the state’s total agricultural power for the lift-irrigation schemes.
The third most-workable scenario, according to the committee, is that of a separate Telangana and Seemandhra with an enlarged Hyderabad metropolis as a separate Union Territory. In this scenario, the limits of Hyderabad territory is increased to give access to Andhra and Rayalaseema regions. A trickle-down effect can still be created in the areas surrounding Hyderabad that fall into the Telangana region, in a way similar to the National Capital Region of Delhi that created satellite towns such as Gurgaon in Haryana and Noida in Uttar Pradesh. From a size-of-economy perspective, Telangana as a new state can sustain itself both with and without Hyderabad as it ranks 13th and 15th, respectively, among the 28 Indian states, excluding Andhra Pradesh.
A possible blueprint
To address the water issues, the committee should have gone further from just recommending a water board with its composition. Instead of the current methodology of allocating water on a proportional basis for different uses in different states, it should have advocated a principle of water-sharing that allows the benefits generated to be enjoyed by all stakeholders. However, by adopting a participatory approach, the committee has given a voice to all stakeholders who wanted to participate. In this aspect, the committee report has the potential to be treated as a blueprint based on which the political leadership can take tangible measures to reverse more than half a century of perceived and real injustices.
The author is the chairman of Malaxmi Group. He served as the chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry, Andhra Pradesh, for 2009-2010, and is currently the chairman of the Infrastructure and Logistics Federation of India, Andhra Pradesh
