Strike paralyses AP secretariat; engg counselling stalled

The seat of power at the Secretariat in Hyderabad has been paralysed by the strike of employees from Seemandhra for the past 20 days, leaving regular business from distributing pensions to farm subsidies in lurch.

Counselling for engineering students which commenced on Monday was severely hit in 23 centres spread over the 13 districts of Seemandhra, where teachers of polytechnique institutions have gone on strike. The teachers should verify certificates of qualified students to allow them to proceed further in engineering education.

About 2 lakh students are competing for 3.48 lakh seats of which 2.2 lakh seats are in engineering colleges in and around Hyderabad.

 A PIL was filed on Monday in the Andhra Pradesh High Court, urging it to direct the state government to conduct engineering counselling in Seemandhra. The court has notified the state government to file a status report on the issue.

In the aftermath of the court ruling, state DGP has asked the IGs of Andhra and Rayalaseema to give an ‘on-the-ground’ report on why security cannot be provided at the designated counselling centres in the region. State government has put out work to rule and ‘no pay for any work’ orders, despite the fact that over 4,500 of the 6,000 Secretariat employees are from Seemandhra, who are striking to stall the process to carve Telangana out of the Andhra state.

Close on the heals of the controversial GO, Chief Secretary P K Mohanty has issued notices to striking employees’ associations to use ESMA (Essential Services Maintenance Act) against them, if the strike continues to sabotage public services. The bureaucrats have former chief minister Chandrababu Naidu to thank for computerising file tracking, which has allowed them to assess crucial documents without the assistance of the support staff.

However, regular functions like pay and accounts, insurance, loan, subsidies, scholarships and tuition fee reimbursements for students, pension distribution for the second quarter of the financial year were badly hit by the strike for united Andhra.

“Unless steps were taken immediately we cannot deliver 75 lakh pensions, 1.5 crore farmers’ subsidy payments.

Right now the LPG subsidy scheme commencing from September 1 is hanging on a thread,” said a senior bureaucrat at the Secretariat.

Almost 3.5 lakh employees in 13 districts of Seemandhra have been agitating for the past 20 days seeking that the state should remain united and Telangana should not be carved out. They have blockaded the highways, shut down markets, educational institutions and all government offices hampering law and order and also revenue collection in Stamps and duties, excise collections etc.

The bifurcation heat has also led to fight over Nallapochamma temple in the secretariat where the Telangana NGOs want to add the prefix Telangana Nallapochamma, but face protest from Seemandhra employees.