New Delhi: Ahead of the launch of its
consultation process, the Justice B N Srikrishna Committee on
Telangana will meet here on Thursday to review the progress
made so far and discuss responses received from various
quarters on the separate statehood demand.
This is the third time the five-member committee will
be meeting in the national capital since it was constituted by
the Centre last month. It had met once in Hyderabad.
Panel's Member-Secretary Vinod K Duggal said the
committee has received "overwhelming" response from various
quarters, including individuals and various organisations, on
the Telangana statehood issue.
"We have appointed some people just to read the
responses. The response we have got is overwhelming.... we are
happy (with the trend)," he told agency.
"We are planning to appoint some five to six dedicated
people to see the responses and format them. We need dedicated
people to sort out the overwhelming responses," Duggal said.
Earlier, many organisations had threatened to boycott
the panel, but most of them have now reversed their decision
and sent their views to the panel.
The committee plans to launch its consultation process
with the general public and political parties from the first
week of April and has announced that the hearings will be
conducted in Hyderabad and other parts of the state.
Asked about the agenda of Thursday's meeting, Duggal
said the meeting will review the progress made by the panel
into the issue in the past one month.
The committee had already started researching on
various aspects like historical, constitutional, political,
legal, economic, social and cultural to give its view on the
separate statehood issue.
The committee had also sought views and suggestions
from political parties, associations and groups and civil
society organisations on the vexed Telangana issue which has
divided parties in Andhra Pradesh virtually on regional lines.
The committee has been mandated to "examine the
situation in the state of Andhra Pradesh with reference to the
demand for a separate state of Telangana as well as the demand
for maintaining the present status of a united Andhra
Pradesh".
Other members of the committee are Ranbir Singh, vice
chancellor of the National Law University, Delhi, Abu Saleh
Shariff, senior research fellow in International Food Policy
Research Institute, Delhi, and Rabinder Kaur, professor at the
department of humanities and social sciences at the Indian
Institute of Technology-Delhi.
The committee has been mandated to review the
developments in the state since its formation and their impact
on the progress and development of different regions.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 10:13