Reorganizing Andhra Pradesh: districts to match LS constituencies

The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister inaugurated 13 new districts with the objective to take administration to the people’s doorsteps. The intention was to match each Lok Sabha constituency with one district.

Why has the government set up new districts?

• The current state government promised to create new districts in order to take the administration to the grassroot level.
• The primary objective, is to take a substantial leap in efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goals.
• The performance of collectors would be assessed on the basis of steps taken by them to achieve the goals.

Who will the new districts serve?

• As far as the new districts are concerned, the Chief Minister claimed that the distance from the remote and border villages to the district headquarters has been reduced.
• Each of the 26 districts now has six to eight Assembly constituencies — Andhra has 175 Assembly seats.
• As a prelude to the formation of new districts, the government had established ward and village secretariats in October 2019 and recently , apart from the 13 new districts, 21 additional revenue divisions have been formed, taking their total number to 72.

How will the new district administration function?

• On the infrastructure front, transit accommodation has been provided to collectors and Superintendents of Police (SPs) and efforts are underway to build integrated administrative complexes on 15 acres in each one of the new districts.
• The idea is to have all offices i.e. offices of the collectors, SPs and heads of the district departments in one place to ensure that the people do not face any inconvenience.

What happened to the ‘three capitals’ plan?

• The Chief Minister had also proposed ‘three capitals’ as a decentralisation move a few months after his party swept to power.
• But after facing massive protests, the government scrapped the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act, 2020, and AP Capital Region Development Authority Repeal Act, 2020, for the development of three capitals — Amaravati (legislative), Visakhapatnam (executive) and Kurnool (judicial).

Exam Track

Prelims Take Away

• Major and minor ports of AP
• Capitals of AP
• Other Indian states with more than one capital - Maharashtra, Uttarakhand etc.