The AP cabinet meeting would be held in the afternoon of April 7. It would be held from 3 pm on the day. It was initially proposed for 11 am on April 7. However, due to the changes in Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s programmes on the day, the cabinet meeting was deferred to 3 pm.

The chief minister was originally scheduled to attend the felicitation of village volunteers at Narasaraopet on April 6 and be available in the capital for the cabinet meeting on the next day. However, the Narasaraopet programme is rescheduled to April 7 morning.

The changes were required as the chief minister had left for the national capital for his two-day tour. Jagan Mohan Reddy is scheduled to meet the Prime Minister on April 5 at 4 pm. He would be in the national capital on April 6 and return to Tadepalli only in the evening.

The chief minister is likely to meet several Union ministers on issues concerning the state. As this two-day programme in Delhi is unexpected, the cabinet meeting has to be deferred, said chief secretary Dr Sameer Sharma.

Interestingly, Minister for Transport, Information and Public Relations, Perni Nani had said that the cabinet revamp would be held on April 11. He met the members of the transport sector in Vijayawada on Tuesday, where he told them that this would be his last meeting as a minister as the new cabinet would take office on April 11.

The Chief Minister would send the resignations of the ministers to Governor Biswabhushan Harichandan for his approval. The chief minister would also send the names of the new cabinet members and request the governor to give them an oath on April 11. The cabinet swearing-in is scheduled to be held at 11.31 AM on April 11, sources said.

Andhra Pradesh has three districts named after their former chief ministers. They included Prakasam district named after Tanguturi Prakasam, YSR Kadapa district named after former chief minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy and NTR district named after N T Rama Rao.

The Prakasam district was first created in 1970 but was named as Prakasam district in 1972. It is now reorganised with some areas of the 1972s Prakasam district merging with the neighbouring Nellore and Bapatla districts.

The Kadapa district, initially Cuddapah, was one of the first districts created by the British in Andhra Pradesh. It was later renamed as Kadapa by the undivided Andhra Pradesh government. However, after the death of Dr Rajasekhar Reddy, the district was renamed as YSR district.

Vijayawada has been part of the Krishna district, where late N T Rama Rao was born. This area is now the new district and is named after NTR in the reorganisation of the districts. Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy had named the Vijayawada district after NTR.

Nellore district was named after Potti Sriramulu, whose sacrifice led to creation of Andhra State, the first linguistic state after Independence. This district was named after Amarajeevi Potti Sriramulu in 2008.

The new organisation also found some names like Sri Sathya Sai district after Sathyasai Baba of Puttaparthy. Another district with Araku as headquarters is named after revolutionary leader Alluri Sitarama Raju, who fought against the British in the pre-independence era.

Another district with Rayachoti as headquarters is named after Annamayya, the poet and devotional singer.

The two regions, Palnadu in Guntur district and Konaseema in the Godavari area are now named after the two regions, with Palnadu district having its headquarters in Narasaraopet and Konaseema district having its headquarters in Amalapuram.

Eight years after the bifurcation, the Andhra Pradesh state has new districts coming into operation finally. Sister state, Telangana had done it in the first two years after bifurcation. It had increased its districts from 10 to 21 in 2016 and added two more in 2019.

Chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu who came to power after bifurcation could not take up the herculean task of districts reorganisation. He focused on building a new city for the capital and spent all his five years in planning for the city, keeping the districts reorganisation aside.

Chandrababu Naidu’s successor, Jagan Mohan Reddy too kept the issue aside for his first two years. He was focusing on his Navarathnalu and shifting of the capital from Amaravati in his first two years in office. He took up the districts reorganisation only in the third year and completed the exercise in one year.

There is a lot more for people to celebrate for the new districts as some names of the new districts are interesting to the people. Creation of new districts like Konaseema (Amalapuram), Palnadu (Narsaraopet), Bhavapuri (Bapatla) and Nandyal and Tirupati are long pending demands and fulfilled by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government.

However, the government had blatantly ignored the demand of creation of a new district with Markapur as headquarters in Prakasam. Though the government had made some corrections at the last minute depending on the representations from the people, it could not satisfy a large number of people.

He broke the attachment of the people to their lands in some districts and completely ignored the distance and proximity of the people to the areas. Vijayawada airport located at Gannavaram is now part of Machilipatnam district and Vijayawada has nothing to its credit after this reorganisation.

Though the government claimed to have taken Parliamentary constituencies as base for creation of new districts, Narsapuram, Hindupur and Rajampet have missed the chance to be the district headquarters. Contrary, while the Parvathipuram Lok Sabha constituency ceased to exist in 2009 delimitation exercise.

Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy seems to have given a golden opportunity for the opposition parties to reach out to the people. He increased the power tariff, which is an emotional issue and would help the opposition parties to make use of the peoples’ emotions.

The TDP has already launched protests in the state. While TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu had issued a statement, its general secretary Nara Lokesh is already on the streets. He is carrying lanterns and candles and going to the people criticising the government for power tariff increase.

Interestingly, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan too had issued a statement condemning the power tariff increase. He is busy with his films schedule and wants to complete all the schedules before the bell rings for the 2024 elections. However, his deputy and Jana Sena political affairs committee chairman, Nadendla Manohar, is on the streets. He led a protest in Rajamahendravaram on Friday against the tariff hike.

The Left parties and the Congress, whose identity in the state is at stake, have also jumped into the war field to take maximum advantage of the power tariff hike. Though the state government justified the hike, as usual, the opposition parties are on the roads asking the government to roll back.

Meanwhile, the ruling party leaders are also justifying the hike but are finding fault with the TDP for its protest on power tariff hike. They are also advising Jana Sena chief to study history on the power reforms in the state and wonder what Pawan Kalyan did when Naidu’s TDP government increased power tariff in 2016.

The YSR Congress leaders also recalled the Basheerbagh police firings during the TDP regime on the protesters. It was the protest against the power reforms and tariff hike by the Left parties and the Congress in the year 2000, when Chandrababu Naidu was the chief minister. Four persons were killed in the police firing while dozens of the people were injured when police caned them.

The incident came handy for the Congress to come back to power in the 2004 elections, besides the historic padayatra of Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy in 2003.

It is now to be seen how far the TDP would be able to take the issue to the people and win their hearts and votes in the elections scheduled for 2024!

The state government is planning to write to the Central government on its new district. The government had proposed 13 new districts in addition to the existing 13 districts. These districts would come into existence on April 4.

Though it was initially planned to start the new districts from Ugadi day on April 2, the government had differed the idea as the day is auspicious for every family in the Telugu states and the employees and the officers would like to stay with the family rather than the office.

Hence the new date of April 4 was fixed and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy would inaugurate them virtually. He would also address the new district collectors and SPs, besides the employees virtually after the inauguration.

The state government has received over 17,500 representations from the people on the new districts of which the officials have considered over 90 per cent of them. Several new revenue divisions were created after the draft notification and some revenue mandals were also added or deleted from the draft proposal.

Meanwhile, the planning department of the government is getting ready to send a detailed report to the Central government in the next week. The department has to send the file to the planning department in the Central government to be notified and communicated to the rest of the departments.

The officials are making last minute changes to the draft notification and the final notification is expected in a day or two. The distribution of employees and purchase of furniture for the new districts is already completed.

The chief minister is expected to make the transfer of IAS and IPS officers for the new districts and the notification is likely to be expected after the publication of the final notification of the districts.

The political corridors are caught up in heated discussions these days in Andhra Pradesh, as chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is getting ready for the cabinet exercise.

While the discussion is on the probable names to make it to the cabinet this time, the other discussion is on whether it will be total revamp or a rejig. Some people say that the chief minister is getting ready to make 100 percent change in the cabinet. In fact, this was what he had said after the cabinet formation on June 8, 2019.

He told his party MLAs that he would drop all the ministers and take new faces after two-and-a-half years, half of the regime. Though the scheduled time is over, the chief minister delayed the exercise as the ministers did not have the chance to work for almost one year due to covid 19 lockdown.

The ministers could not move out to meet the people in the districts as the lockdown was imposed from March 2020 to March 2021. There were four phases of lockdowns from March 24, 2020 to May 31, 2020.

Then it was the turn of unlocks from June 1, 2020 to till date, but seriously the ministers could not do much for one year from March 2020.

Because of this, the chief minister is said to be giving some relief to a handful of the ministers to continue. The decision was taken following the caste equations as the chief minister is not able to find better alternatives from various castes.

This would mean that he would continue a few and take the new faces to fill the vacancies. If all ministers are dropped and new faces are taken in, it would be called the cabinet revamp. However, if a few ministers are retained and the balance are taken in, it would be called the rejig.

What is in store for the state government is known only when the chief minister announces the date and the names of his new colleagues. Until then, it’s all speculation.

The AP Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) had recommended an increase in the power tariff on Wednesday. Commission chairman Justice Nagarjuna Reddy released the proposed tariff at Tirupati. The commission proposed an average increase of Rs 1 per unit.

The proposed tariff has 45 paise more per unit for less than 30 units, 91 paise per unit for 31 to 75 units, Rs 1.40 per unit for 76 to 125 units, Rs 1.57 per unit for 126 to 225 units, Rs 1.16 per unit for 226 to 400 units and Rs 55 paise increased per unit for all units beyond 400 units, in the domestic sector.

The present charges are Rs 1.45 per unit below 30 units, Rs 2.09 per unit for 31 to 75 units, Rs 3.10 per unit for 76 to 125 units, Rs 4.43 per unit for 126 to 225 units, Rs 7.59 per unit for 226 to 400 units. Above 400 units, the government is charging Rs 9.20 per unit.

The proposed increase would give Rs 1,400 crore additional revenue to the Discoms from the domestic sector. However, the state government would extend Rs 11,123 crore subsidy to the eligible consumers.

Meanwhile, former minister and TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh cautioned the government against accepting the APERC’s recommendations. He said that the proposal is to loot the consumers and threatened to launch agitation if the power tariff is increased as proposed by the APERC.

Lokesh alleged that by increasing the power tariff, chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy is trying to get back the money given to the people under various schemes. He said that the chief minister was already collecting back the money paid to the people through various schemes and an increase of power tariff would cost dearly for the people.

The AP cabinet at its virtual meeting on Wednesday cleared the state government’s proposal for the new districts. The government had proposed another 13 new districts adding to the existing 13 districts. The total number of districts would go up to 26 now.

The districts were created based on the Lok Sabha constituency except the Parvathipuram district, which was carved out now from the Srikakulam and Vizianagaram districts. The new districts would be inaugurated on April 4 against April 2, as decided earlier.

The state government also added 22 new revenue divisions. Chandrababu Naidu’s home constituency, Kuppam, has been made a new revenue division now. The state government had accepted almost all major demands for creation of new revenue divisions.

The government is likely to issue a Gazette notification in a day or two as the cabinet has given its approval for the proposal. Once the notification is issued, the new districts would become functional with the chief minister inaugurating them on April 4.

The officials have already identified the buildings for the district collectors and SPs, besides the district level officials. The employees too were transferred to the new districts. All departments have completed the process, including the police. The APSRTC too had completed the division of its bus depots to the new districts.

The chief minister is likely to clear the transfer of the senior IAS and IPS officers to the new districts. The notification is likely to come in a day or two. The state would be having 26 districts against the 25 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, with the addition of Parvathipuram district on Wednesday.

All ministers in the AP cabinet are set to submit their resignations to chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy at their last cabinet meeting on April 7. This would facilitate the chief minister to rejig his cabinet as per his calculations.

The chief minister had slated the cabinet meeting for April 7. Sources say that he would ask his cabinet colleagues to give him their resignations to enable him to rejig the cabinet. He had already fixed April 11, the day after Sri Rama Navami, for revamp of the cabinet.

Though it was said that he would go for total revamp with all 24 new faces in the cabinet, sources say that Jagan Mohan Reddy had changed his mind. He is said to be retaining at least four to five ministers from the present cabinet.

He made a laborious exercise of compiling the cabinet taking into consideration all factors such as caste, gender and districts. He is also said to be firm on not changing the basic structure of his cabinet where he has five deputy chief ministers.

Though his party is dominated by the Reddy community, the chief minister is learned to have cut the size of the community as he did in his first cabinet compilation. There are three cabinet ministers, Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy, Balineni Srinivasa Reddy and late Mekapati Goutham Reddy, in the present cabinet besides the chief minister.

While it is said that he would add one more Reddy to the list this time, the new name would also go into the category of women representation, giving him some comfort. Nigari MLA R K Roja fits into this category to the comfort of the chief minister who is very particular about the social and gender combination.