Field level exercise to carve out new districts in Andhra Pradesh has begun. Chittoor district administration is preparing to collect data needed for creation of new districts. District collector Narayana Bharat Gupta held the first meeting on the subject where he directed the officials of all departments to keep the data ready for the exercise.
The state government has decided to constitute new districts broadly based on Lok Sabha constituencies. It also set up a committee headed by Chief Secretary. Sub-committees have been constituted at state-level with senior officials of various departments as members. As an extension, committees headed by collectors have been formed in districts.
The Chittoor collector conducted the first meeting recently setting the process on the roll. Chittoor District has 66 mandals and three revenue divisions – Madanapalle, Chittoor and Tirupati. While Madanapalle division has 31mandals, Chittoor and Tirupati have 20 and 15 mandals respectively. Geographically, Madanapalle revenue division is the biggest. There has been a demand that it be divided into two. In the wake of the move to reorganize districts, their dream is likely to become a reality soon.
Chittoor has 14 Assembly constituencies and three Lok Sabha constituencies. Chittoor LS seat has 7 Assembly segments. All these seven segments are in the limits of three revenue divisions. Three Assembly segments of the district are now part of Rajampet Lok Sabha constituency. Some Assembly segments of Nellore too form part of Tirupati Lok Sabha seat. This means revenue divisions have to be reorganized before setting up new districts on the basis of Lok Sabha constituencies. For this purpose, the collector instructed officials to collect division-wise data regarding employees in different departments, buildings, vacancies, nativity of employees and others.
Meanwhile, the 2021 Census is scheduled to be held from April next year. It is to be preceded by updating the NPR (National Population Register). The borders of village, mandal, division or district cannot be changed once the Census process begins. Though notification was issued in January this year for the Census, it got delayed due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus.
So, it is likely that the reorganization of districts will be completed before the start of 2021 Census which takes six more months to commence. Chittoor will remain as district headquarters while a new district will come up with Tirupati as headquarters. Madanapalle, Tamballapalle, Punganuru and Piler Assembly segments of Chittoor district are currently part of Rajampet LS constituency. A demand for setting up a new district with Madanapalle as headquarters is gaining ground as there are many Assembly constituencies in Chittoor district. It is to be seen if this demand will be considered by the government favourably and if Madanapalle will indeed become district headquarters.