The Head of Departments and leaders of all Secretariat employees associations are meeting on Monday to convey to the Andhra Pradesh government that they cannot move out of Hyderabad overnight, leaving their families behind.
Last week, the state government issued an ultimatum in the form of a 'general order', asking all 14,000 state employees working in Hyderabad to shift to the temporary capital in Vijayawada. A vast majority of the families of these employees will be divided because of the shift since an abrupt change is not possible for settled families with children in schools and colleges.
The employees, who would be forced to run two households in two different cities, wished to convey to the chief minister their sentiment that unless arrangements were fully ready at the temporary capital, they did not want to migrate.
According to Sowjanya Devi, honorary president, R&B engineers’ association, the decision of the government subjected 14000 families to an immense trauma, as every family was going to be vertically split between the husband and the wife after June 27.
The shifting, she told Asianet Newsable, will affect women employees more harshly than their male counterparts.
“I am not able to understand the hurry in shifting the government to the new capital region where nothing is ready. While the construction of interim secretariat is incomplete, the government has not made the rented premises available. We have no residential accommodation. Even though Just three weeks’ time is left, the government has not yet revealed its roadmap. Chaos is ruling the roost in Andhra Pradesh government,” Sowjanya said, stating that it was unfair to take a decision based on the inputs of a couple of leaders of the employees.
She re-enforced her point by demanding to know why employees should suffer at a temporary capital now due to inexplicable political reasons when they are willing to move to Amaravati itself at an appropriate time.
“The Centre has made Hyderabad as the joint capital for ten years as it thought Andhra Pradesh needed that much time to build its capital. Now neither the capital and nor the interim capital is ready, but the government wants us to shift in one fell swoop. Moving to a non-existent capital will shatter families, and the education of our children will be affected. For instance, the families of working couples will be split without any hope of reunification,” she said.
The Andhra Pradesh Gazette officers’ association president, AB Patil, is concerned that the state government was not ready to take employees into their confidence before making a decision that might 'ruin 14,000 families'.
"We are Telangana people. If we go to the Andhra capital, our children do not become Andhra citizen automatically and are not eligible to write many exams in Andhra. They do not qualify for jobs in the Andhra government. We are being subjected to untold miseries. Women especially are a worried lot,” Patil said.
To avoid a separation of families, the employees demand the government first complete construction of the permanent capital in two or three years and then shift the government from Hyderabad.
This, they claim, would not only give the government adequate time to address the 'local status' issue of the employees but would also give employees sufficient time to relocate themselves to Amaravati permanently.
