Telangana to have 21 new districts; total goes to 31

Hyderabad: As many as 21 new districts would come into existence in Telangana on the auspicious occasion of Vijaya Dasami on Tuesday.

With these, the total number of districts in the state would go up to 31.

Telangana, which came into existence on June 2, 2014 as the 29th State of India, started out with 10 districts.

The reorganisation of districts has been taken up for better administration, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has said.

The administration should have up to date information on the districts and their residents over the implementation of various Government programmes as the total population in each of them would only be in lakhs, he said.

The inauguration of the new districts would be a grand event tomorrow with the Assembly Speaker, ministers and other government functionaries attending the events in each of them.

Rao would attend the inauguration of Siddipet district, carved out of Medak, his home turf, according to the list of VIPs proposed for inauguration of new districts provided by the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) in a release.

The new districts are Siddipet, Jangaon, Jayashankar, Jagtial, Warangal (Rural), Yadadri, Peddapally, Kamareddy, Medak, Mancheriyal, Vikarabad, Rajanna, Asifabad, Suryapet, Kothagudem, Nirmal, Wanaparthy, Nagarkurnool, Mahabubabad, Jogulamba and Medchal/Malkajgiri, the CMO release said. 

The reorganisation of districts was done as part of a massive exercise undertaken by the state government to revamp administrative units. The TRS government is also reorganising mandals (a low-level division of a district) and other administrative units.

The government appointed a committee, headed by Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma, earlier and another panel led by TRS MP K Keshava Rao to go into the issue.

The reorganisation of districts also witnessed protests.

Opposition Congress, TDP and BJP have hit out at the TRS government for allegedly going about reorganisation of districts in an unscientific and unilateral manner.

Leader of Opposition in the Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir took exception to the government not conducting an all-party meeting for a second time on the issue.

Telangana TDP Working President and MLA A Revant Reddy alleged the Rao government adopted a discriminatory attitude in formation of districts and mandals.

He said the TRS government acted against the interest of adivasis and other social groups.