T’gana Guv to draw Centre’s attention to problems of villages merged with Andhra

Hyderabad: Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Wednesday assured that she would bring to the notice of the Centre the problems faced by five villages of Telangana which were merged with Andhra Pradesh.

She gave the assurance while interacting with the tribals at Bhadrachalam town in Bhadradri Kothagudem district.

Bhadrachalam MLA P. Veeraiah briefed the Governor on the problems faced by the people. He urged her to use her good offices to ensure that Telangana gets back five gram panchayats merged with Andhra Pradesh.

The MLA told the Governor that people of these gram panchayats were suffering due to floods in Godavari river. He called for finding a permanent solution to the problems of floods.

The governor gave the assurance that she would take up with the Centre the issue of villages merged with Andhra Pradesh.

Earlier, Tamilisai Soundararajan reached Bhadrachalam from Hyderabad. She had a darshan at Sitaramachandra Swamy temple. Temple officials and priests welcomed her.

She told reporters that she prayed for the well-being of all people of the country.

She later participated in public programme and District Red Cross Conference.

After the programmes at Bhadrachalam, the Governor visited Khammam to participate in the Y20 workshop at Sri Chaitanya Institute of Technology and Research, (formally KITS, Khammam), Ponnekal.

It may be recalled that after massive floods in Bhadrachalam and surrounding villages last year, Telangana’s transport minister P. Ajay Kumar had demanded that seven mandals (blocks) merged with Andhra Pradesh in 2014 be handed back to Telangana.

After bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh to carve out Telangana state, the Centre had issued an ordinance merging seven mandals of Telangana with Andhra Pradesh to facilitate construction of Polavaram project across Godavari in the neighbouring state.

The demand for demerger had evoked strong reaction from Andhra Pradesh.

On Ajay Kumar’s demand to handover at least five villages near Bhadrachalam to Telangana, Andhra Pradesh’s minister for water resources Ambati Rambabu had said that the demand should be made to the Centre.