By IANS
Hyderabad : Protesting the delay in repatriation of non-local government employees from the Telangana region, hundreds of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) workers gathered here Tuesday to lay siege to the Andhra Pradesh secretariat.
Despite the arrest of TRS activists across the state, the TRS has decided to go ahead with its plan to lay siege to the secretariat on the banks of the Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad. As a result, the police have turned the seat of governance into a virtual fortress.
The protestors are gathering at Indira Park, about two km from the state secretariat and plan to march towards the building later in the day.
TRS has been demanding separate statehood for the Telangana region that comprises of 10 districts including Hyderabad. It now wants the implementation of a government order (GO 610) issued two decades ago to send back all non-local government employees in the area to their respective regions.
Although the order was issued in 1985 by the then Telugu Desam government in line with a presidential order on employment for locals in the region, successive governments did not implement it.
Though the Congress government had fixed June 30 as the deadline for repatriation of all non-local government employees, the Andhra Pradesh state administrative tribunal stayed the order issued by the chief secretary.
Employees from Andhra and Rayalseema regions are reluctant to go back to their native places. The war of words between the TRS, Congress and TDP leaders of other regions has also added fuel to the fire.
A committee of the state legislative assembly, monitoring the implementation of GO 610, concluded that it might take another three months to send back all non-locals. TRS, however, wants an immediate repatriation.
Alleging that the government is not sincere in implementation of GO 610, TRS president K. Chandrasekhara Rao warned that his party would launch an agitation like the one staged recently by the Gujjar community in Rajasthan.
Differences also persist on the number of non-local employees in Telangana. According to government estimates, there are only 4500 such employees but the TRS claims that the numbers are much higher.
The people of Telangana were assured of preference in employment after more than 300 people were killed in a violent agitation for separate statehood in the early 1970s. Six years ago, the TRS revived the movement for a separate Telangana state.