Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government late last month issued a draft notification doubling the number of districts in the state to 26 — a move it claims is aimed at better administration and decentralisation. But the decision has drawn widespread criticism and sparked backlash.
Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy Thursday said the new districts should be formed by Ugadi, the Telugu New Year that will fall in the first week of April this year. The chief minister also said that existing collectors and superintendents of police will be appointed to the new districts, for hassle-free administration.
The boundaries of the existing districts will be redrawn under the Andhra Pradesh Districts (Formation) Act, 1974.
While the government has stressed that the move to create new, smaller districts will ensure inclusive development, there has been opposition to the way the districts have been reorganised, shifting of district headquarters, and the names allocated.
As for its potential political ramifications, analysts say the move may help the YSR Congress strengthen local leadership but is unlikely to affect voting patterns.
How reorganisation has been done
The districts have been reorganised based on Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies — a plan that Jagan Mohan Reddy promised during his election campaign before he came to power in 2019.
Andhra Pradesh has 25 Lok Sabha constituencies — which in some cases include assembly constituencies from two different districts.
Among the Lok Sabha constituencies is Rajampet, which has seven assembly segments. Three of them are from Kadapa district, which includes Rayachoti, and four from Chittoor district, which includes Madanapalle.
The other notable districts being reorganised include Sri Balaji district, which is being carved out of Chittoor, and will host the country’s famous temple town Tirupati.
From Visakhapatnam, which hosts one of the proposed capital cities, two new districts Anakapalli and Alluri Sitarama Raju are being carved out. The latter is named after the legendary freedom fighter.
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Objections to reorganisation
The Jagan government has argued that the districts have been reorganised based on not just Lok Sabha constituencies but also public sentiments, geographical boundaries and the demographic situation, to ensure balanced growth with respect to educational and economic development.
However, civil rights organisation Human Rights Forum pointed out that the rationale used for the formation of new districts (LS constituencies) is fundamentally flawed, saying that the exercise seems to have been done in a very “cavalier manner and is bereft of basic geographic sense”.
“If it is passed, it will result in several places across the state either remaining at considerable distances from the proposed district headquarters or the distance even increasing further than before,” the HRF said in a statement last month.
“For example, the newly proposed Alluri Sitarama Raju district with Paderu as headquarters, includes the assembly segment of Rampachodavaram. This would render Yetapaka, a revenue divisional headquarters in the Rampachodavaram constituency, 277 km away from Paderu,” it added. “The travel time taken would be well over seven hours. Likewise, most mandals in Rampachodavaram like Kunavaram, V.R. Puram, Devipatnam and Maredumilli, would be more than 240 km from the district headquarters,” it added.
The organisation raised similar concerns in non-scheduled regions or non-tribal areas such as Prakasam and Kurnool districts.
The HRF proposed carving out at least three districts from each existing district, adding that the neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Odisha, have a higher number of districts despite a lesser geographical spread than AP.
Since 2016, Telangana has reorganised districts to 33 from 10.
I.Y.R. Krishna Rao, former chief secretary in undivided Andhra Pradesh, also objected to Lok Sabha constituencies being used as basis for reorganisation.
“My only objection is the criterion taken to arrive at this decision. Lok Sabha constituency as a unit for division is an irrelevant criterion. I believe the government should consider factors such as nearness, contiguous area, historical cultural relations, backwardness,” he told ThePrint.
Former IAS officer E.A.S. Sarma, who was principal adviser in the National Planning Commission, wrote to the CM last month pointing out how the reorganisation will have a significant impact on tribal regions.
Calling the exercise a violation of tribal rights, Sarma pointed out that it is extremely necessary to preserve sovereignty given to the tribal village councils under Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA), and the Forest Rights Act.
“It is important and extremely necessary to discuss the reorganisation process with the adivasis in prior and in accordance with the PESA Act — at the level of gram sabhas in scheduled areas, have a dialogue and take their views into consideration. Failure to do so, is a violation of the PESA Act,” he said.
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Clamour for district headquarters
The latest objection has come from actor-turned-politician N. Balakrishna, a TDP MLA who has threatened to resign if his constituency Hindupur, which is currently under Anantapur district, isn’t made the district headquarters of the newly-carved out district, Sri Sathya Sai district, which is named after the late spiritual guru Sathya Sai Baba, who hailed from Puttaparthi town.
The headquarters of the new district is proposed at Puttaparthi, which is an hour away from Hindupur.
Balakrishna argued that Hindupur had all the basic amenities and 600 acres of government land and hence should be the government’s first choice.
An hour away from Hindupur is Penukonda where, too, the demand is growing for district headquarters.
The district headquarters are a prime area in the district where most of the administration department is set up. The HQ usually sees quicker and more development compared to other areas.
Protests are going on in Madanapalle mandal (Chittoor district) to be made district headquarters for the new Annamayya district, whose proposed headquarters is Rayachoti. There have been protests in Kadapa district, too, to make Rajampet as headquarters for Annamayya district.
Naming districts
In what appears to be a political strike to the Opposition, the Jagan government has proposed to carve out Vijayawada as a separate district and name it after former CM and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founder N.T. Rama Rao.
Meanwhile, there is a barrage of demands from different corners to rename new districts after poets, freedom fighters, etc.
TDP general secretary Varla Ramaiah has appealed to the CM that the newly proposed district Palnadu be named after legendary Telugu poet Gurram Joshua.
There is a demand to name a district after National Flag designer Pingali Venkayya, and another one to rename Vijayawada after freedom fighter and former agriculture minister Late Kakani Venkataratnam.
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‘Dialogue with Opposition needed’
Several experts pointed out how the government should initiate a dialogue with the Opposition and other stakeholders.
“Decentralisation should be looked at in a positive way… It would obviously benefit people when a collector is assigned to a smaller set of people than before and so on. Andhra Pradesh has lesser districts compared to other states of similar size. It is practically impossible to satisfy everyone when such a huge exercise is done,” senior political analyst Professor Nageshwar Rao said.
“A few of the segments could be adjusted as per demands and others could not. For instance, in Gannavaram (in Vijayawada), there are a lot of Vijayawada’s rural segments that fall under (Gannavaram assembly seat). Gannavaram airport is considered Vijayawada airport. But after reorganisation, Gannavaram is in Krishna district with Machilipatnam as headquarters and not in Vijayawada. They could not adjust Gannavaram,” Rao said.
“But in other instances they could keep Santhanuthalapadu in Ongole district after backlash, which ideally should go to newly formed Bapatla district as per the Lok Sabha constituency criterion,” he said.
The Andhra government, which formed a committee in 2020 to work on the reorganisation process, has asked people to send in their suggestions to district collectors in a month.
Senior political analyst Telakapalli Ravi said this issue of reorganisation of districts and better governance will become a pre-election pitch for the ruling YSR Congress Party in the next assembly polls, adding that it would help the state leadership to strengthen its local base.
“Assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies will remain the same — so not much of a change in voting pattern. But, this move will help the party strengthen its leadership at the local level,” Ravi added. “This kind of administrative decentralisation leads to political centralisation. The CM even announced he will have existing collectors appointed in new districts — in a way that is also a move to make sure things are under control in new areas,” Ravi said.
Jana Sena Party’s general secretary Satyanarayana Bolisetty pointed out how the process lacked transparency.
“There was no debate or discussion, before introducing it, either with political parties in state or with the public. It should have been done with some transparency and after consulting all stakeholders. Neither (former CM) Chandrababu Naidu nor Jagan have any faith in democracy or the process and this is evident in case of formation of new capital by Naidu and formation of new districts by Jagan Reddy,” he told ThePrint.
(Edited by Amit Upadhyaya)
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