Andhra Pradesh   

Teachers may not find a place in A.P. Council

W. Chandrakanth

Government may adhere to Moily Committee recommendations

HYDERABAD: When the Legislative Council is formed its composition may not see any representative from the teachers' constituency. This would be in keeping with the recommendations made by the Veerappa Moily Committee to the Cabinet Advisory Board (CAB) in 1993.

In the past, eight members were elected from among teachers in the 90-member Council. The composition was such that 31 members were elected by the Legislative Assembly, 31 from the local bodies and eight each from graduates' and teachers' constituencies.The Governor nominated 12 eminent persons from different fields.

This time round, the Government is veering round to opinion that this system of electing MLCs from teachers' constituencies is causing more harm to the field of education than good. Morever, the profiles of careers are changing and newer avenues of employment are emerging in the modern times and there is no reason why the doors of the Upper House should not be opened to these professionals.

Some of the new professionals whose claims could be considered are doctors, engineers, technocrats, IT & biotech professionals, NGOs' and the leaders of self-help groups. There is a demand from the professionals in these areas to this effect. This factor was also broached upon by the Cabinet Advisory Board headed by Mr. Moily.

The Election Commission too had given its opinion in its favour.

The Government has not yet completed the exercise of identifying the legal problems in taking up the Council formation before the Panchayat elections. The fact that the TDP controls most of the panchayats is a factor causing it to re-think on early constitution of the Upper House. When the first council was formed in 1958, there were eight Teachers' Constituencies in the State representing the teachers from North Circar (Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam districts), Central Circar (East and West Godavari), Krishna district (entire district as a single constituency), Guntur and Prakasam districts, East Rayalaseema (Nellore, Chittoor), West Rayalaseema (Cuddapah, Kurnool, Anantapur), East Telangana (Khammam, Warangal, Nalgonda, Karimnagar, Adilabad) and West Telangana (Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Mahabubnagar, Medak, Nizamabad).

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