Telangana report is in, jury still out

Telangana should not be the first option, and a separate state must be created only if it is unavoidable, the Justice Srikrishna report has said. 

A united Andhra Pradesh — with a proviso for empowering the region, excluding Hyderabad, through a statutory Telangana Regional Council — may be the best way forward, says the two-volume, 700-page report, which the government made public today. 

The Indian Express had reported on January 5 that the Srikrishna panel had weighed in on the side of arguments in favour of a united Andhra. 

The report has offered four other options, including one that proposes a new Union Territory of greater Hyderabad with borders that are contiguous with all three regions of the state: Telangana, Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra. 

This proposal is yet to be tested with political parties. But pro-Telangana parties opposed to the ‘two states, one capital’ theory have until now rejected this argument on the ground that Hyderabad is about 200 km away from the nearest border district of coastal Andhra. 

...contd.