Gearing up to shift some of its employees from Hyderabad to the proposed Capital region of Amravati, the Andhra Pradesh Government has issued a proforma to each employee seeking his personal and family details.
The form to be filled in by the employees also asks whether he or she was willing to relocate from Hyderabad to Amravati, the proposed new Capital of the State.
The other details sought include name, position held and the educational status of the children. Official sources said apart from finding out the choice of the employees the exercise was also aimed at assessing other requirements including the educational needs of the children of the employees.
As Hyderabad was declared a common Capital for both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh States till 2024, the Secretariat of AP Government was functioning in Hyderabad and most of the State employees were preferring to stay put in Hyderabad due to the educational requirements of their children.
However, in view of the changing situation and needs of the administration, the State Government was planning to shift at least 10,000 employees at the earliest to a make shift Capital in Vijayawada till the new Capital gets ready.
But various technical and legal hurdles were coming in the way. One such hurdle was Article 371-D of the Constitution which gives local status to the all the Government employees working in Hyderabad and it gives certain benefits to their children in terms of education.
But if they were shifted to Vijaywada zone, they were afraid that they will be treated as non local and their children will not get admission in educational institutions under local quota.
As only the President of India has the powers to change this zonal system, the State Government has written to the Union Government to solve this issue by amending the Article.
In another related development the Intelligence Department for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have joined hands and deployed cloud based automation platform for faster verification of all the employees working in both the States.
Using this platform the two States will collate the data of all the employees from across different Government organisations and verify their background. It will help both the States in expediting the process of deciding which employee will to which State based on his or her place of origin.
Most of the employees working in Hyderabad were from Andhra region. While their services should go to Andhra Pradesh State Government, they were resisting the idea of their transfer out of Hyderabad.