Hyderabad: Telangana will go for a fresh bout of reorganisation of districts nine years after its internal geographical boundaries underwent sweeping changes right upto the village level under the previous Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) regime.The BRS government had carved out 23 new districts in addition to the existing 10 in October 2016, two years after Telangana became a state following a major agitation.Though the present Congress government led by A. Revanth Reddy was expected to take up the exercise after the party was voted to power two years ago, the issue never figured in political or public discourses until Reddy’s sudden announcement at a new year diary release function in the State Secretariat on the afternoon of January 12. A hint about the government’s plans had been, however, given by his ministerial colleagues Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy and Ponnam Prabhakar a day earlier.In the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh from which Telangana was carved out in 2014, the Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy government initially doubled the number of districts from 13 to 26 in 2022 and recently, the present Chandrababu Naidu regime added three more districts.Reddy announced that a commission headed by a retired high court or Supreme Court judge will be constituted to recommend the reorganisation of districts within six months. The decision was taken in response to representations and demands from various quarters to rationalise existing districts and mandals.The commission will tour Telangana to gather the views of the public. A policy framework will be finalised after taking the opinion of all parties in the coming budget session of the assembly, he said.The BRS government had created 23 new districts by altering the boundaries of existing districts and, thereby, also realigned revenue divisions, mandals and villages with new names within the new units. The government had announced that the formation of new districts, revenue divisions, mandals and villages will not immediately have an effect on the existing local bodies of zilla parishads, mandal parishads and gram panchayats. The local bodies for the new districts were elected two years later at the end of the term of previous bodies.The BRS described the reorganisation of districts – with a near three-fold increase in their number – as a step to take the administration closer to people but the decision received flak from the public as it had substantial financial implications and a significant increase in bureaucracy was needed for functional district administrations.The government had then invoked the Andhra Pradesh Districts (Formation) Act, 1974, which provided for the formation of districts in the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh and for the alteration of areas or boundaries of the districts in the interests of better administration and development. The Act was used to create Prakasam and Rangareddy districts in the seventies and eighties.The BRS government was accused of going ahead with large districts to please the then chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao who considered the number six lucky. Many claimed that 33 districts were created because 3 plus 3 equals KCR’s lucky 6.It was argued that there was neither a public hearing nor a thorough study had been conducted – though the government had invited suggestions and objections online. The process was arbitrary. Asifabad district, which was one of the last to be notified and took the tally to 33, was created at the request of local BRS MLA Kova Laxmi. Similarly, Mulug in erstwhile Warangal district was created owing to pressure from local leadership.ReactionWith the Congress government now disclosing its plan to undo the exercise that has already taken deep roots with the institution of collectorates, courts, government offices and proportionate administrative machinery, the BRS has threatened to whip up social tensions even if a single district was disturbed.The party president K.T. Rama Rao has said that the state will turn into a boiling cauldron as the party will launch intense agitations in the affected districts. He said the Congress was not happy with the fact that fruits of development and welfare programmes reaching the doors of people.Former BRS minister and MLA T. Harish Rao told The Wire that the party took up reorganisation of districts with the aim to decentralise authority and take administration to the people. “Focussed development of tribal areas such as Mulug and most backward regions like Gadwal was also targeted. The government had to deal with mismatches in small and unwieldy districts,” Rao said.Rao warned of “an agitation as severe as the one for Telangana’s statehood even if a single district was deleted.” He said the existing districts had become growth corridors with collectorates, new medical colleges and other institutions. “All the good work will go to waste,” he said.‘Against wishes’The Chief Minister’s announcement was welcomed by transport minister Ponnam Prabhakar who said the BRS undertook reorganisation of districts forcibly against wishes of the public.For instance, Prabhakar said that the Husnabad constituency represented by him was merged with Siddipet district though the region was always a part of the Karimnagar district. “The cultural ties of people of Husnabad were identified with Karimnagar. The government refused to take notice of a hundred-day agitation against the merger of Husnabad with Siddipet,” he added.Citing the effort of BRS as unscientific, Prabhakar pointed out the existence of collectorates of Warangal and Hanamkonda districts in common district headquarters towns. He said that the Congress government will heed the public response.‘Unilateral’The BJP state president N. Ramchander Rao said the party favoured a district for each parliamentary constituency to make geographical boundaries of districts coterminous with parliament and assembly constituencies for hassle-free delivery of welfare programmes. Assembly constituencies spill over into as many as three districts at present, Rao said, accusing the BRS government of having done the previous reorganisation unilaterally.His view was supported by CPI state secretary K. Sambasiva Rao who said two or three mandals constituted one district now whereas there were upto 50 mandals in districts like Karimnagar and Adilabad in the past. Many of the districts did not have government offices or adequate furniture. “Some collectorates lack staff and funds,” Rao said.The Telangana Jana Samiti president M. Kodandaram welcomed the commission announced by the chief minister and said that the review of the districts will help in securing a dispassionate examination of the existing structure. He also advocated for the boundaries of parliament and assembly constituencies to be declared as district limits. “The scheduled areas should also be merged to bring administrative coherence. They were divided now. All these issues were not handled properly by the BRS government,” Kodandaram said.The BRS government had formed a new zonal system with seven zones and two multi-zones for recruitment and transfer of employees after the reorganisation of districts. Then president Ram Nath Kovind gave his assent to the new zonal system – ‘The Telangana Public Employment (Organisation of Local Cadres and Regulation of Direct Recruitment) Order, 2018’. With the new zonal system, locals get 95% reservation and the open category gets 5% in public employment and education. Telangana had thus become the only state in the country to reserve 95% of its jobs to its original residents. The Presidential Order had been necessary as the sibling states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were governed by Article 371 D of the constitution in the matter of public employment and education which was enacted by the 32nd amendment in 1973 following an agitation for separate Telangana.“All the effort will go to waste,” former BRS MLA Harish Rao remarked.