Overview
- Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao, who wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday, asked for a bill this session to restore five gram panchayats to Telangana.
- The request covers Yatapaka, Kannaigudem, Pitchikalapadu, Purushothapatnam and Gundala, which together form 19 revenue villages near Bhadrachalam that were shifted to Andhra Pradesh in 2014 for the Polavaram project.
- Rao said residents, most of them tribals, travel about 282 km to the Andhra district headquarters in Alluri Sitarama Raju district even though Telangana’s Bhadradri Kothagudem HQ is roughly 40 km away.
- He warned that broken borders hinder police coordination in an area affected by Left Wing Extremist influence, creating day-to-day security and enforcement gaps.
- He also cited plans worth about ₹300 crore for the Bhadrachalam temple region, noting key temple lands lie in Andhra, and said any transfer will need resolutions from both state Assemblies and a Parliament vote after signals of support he reported from Andhra CM N. Chandrababu Naidu in February.