New districts should be formed for convenience of people: Human Rights Forum

Visakhapatnam: The need for smaller districts is apparent, given the geographical spread and the enormous size of each district.

However, the reported preference of the state government to re-organise districts so that they are co-terminus with Parliamentary constituencies draws flak, the representatives of the Human Rights Forum (HRF) said.

For example, the HRF members said, the Araku Lok Sabha constituency spans across four districts - stretching from Rampachodavaram Assembly segment in neighbouring East Godavari district to the very faraway Palakonda Assembly constituency in Srikakulam district.

While Palakonda is 157 kms away, Rampachodavaram is about 283 kms from Araku. Some mandals in these Assembly segments are located even farther away from Araku. "What is the point of the re-organisation exercise at all if it does not shorten distances and ends up increasing existing long distances? There are many such incongruities," pointed out V S Krishna and A Chandrasekhar, HRF AP and TS coordination committee members.

With respect to the Fifth Schedule region, HRF feels that each of the existing Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) headquarters can be constituted into a new district. This would mean Seethampeta in Srikakulam district, Parvathipuram in Vizianagaram, Paderu in Visakhapatnam district, Rampachodavaram in East Godavari, Kota Ramchandrapuram (located in Buttaigudem mandal) in West Godavari district and the recently created Chintoor ITDA in erstwhile Khammam district. Chintoor district can include the mandals of Velerpadu and Kukkunur across the Godavari River as well.

"Constituting these new districts makes eminent sense given the unique and exceptional nature of the Fifth Schedule area that has been endowed with explicit Constitutional recognition. Importantly, there are a total of 553 Adivasi villages that ought to have been included many decades ago in the Fifth Schedule but were kept out due to political indifference and bureaucratic recklessness," the HRF members stated.