Power plants closed down to protest division of state
Print Edition
Widespread power outages paralyzed life across the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh yesterday as electricity workers closed down power plants to protest a decision to divide the state in two.
Cellular phone service was down across much of the state, while more than 50 trains were canceled. Hospital and emergency services were running on generators.
The state has been rocked by violent protests after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress party government announced last week its decision to go ahead with a plan to carve out a new state of Telangana from 10 districts of Andhra Pradesh.
Opponents are mostly from what would be the left-over part of Andhra Pradesh. They fear that tax revenues from the new state would go mostly to Telangana as much of the industry in the state is located around the city of Hyderabad, a major IT hub, which would be in the future new state. They are also worried about potential disputes over the sharing of river water and budget allocation.
Hundreds of thousands of government employees opposed to the division are on strike. Ashok Babu, leader of one of the government employee associations, said the strike would continue till the government rolled back its decision on the division of Andhra Pradesh.
Supporters of the plan say the drought-prone northern area that is to become Telangana is underdeveloped and its residents feel discriminated against in the allocation of state funds, water and jobs. Achieving statehood will allow the future state, with 35 million people, to get the resources it needs to develop, they say.
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