Hyderabad: The Telangana government on Monday released a draft notification outlining a plan to reorganise the state into 27 districts from an existing 10 for easier administration and better focus on development.

The geographical area of the existing districts of Adilabad, Hyderabad, Karimnagar, Khammam, Mahabubnagar, Medak, Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Ranga Reddy and Warangal will be reduced as a result of the reorganization.

The 17 new districts will be called Acharya Jayashankar, Hanamkonda, Jagtial, Kamareddy, Komaram Bheem, Kothagudem, Mahabubabad, Malkajgiri, Nagarkurnool, Nirmal, Peddapally, Sangareddy, Shamshabad, Siddipet, Suryapet, Wanaparthy and Yadadri.

The draft notification for the reorganization of districts, revenue divisions and mandals was issued under the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Districts Reorganisation Act, 1974, which was adopted by the Telangana government.

The government has given one month for the public to offer suggestions and objections on the draft notification.

In addition to the new districts, the state government also proposes to add 15 new revenue divisions and 46 new mandals or taluks.

Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, in his Independence Day speech, had said his government would be completing the process of forming new districts by Dussehra this year.

The creation of new districts was part of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS)’s manifesto for the 2014 assembly election.

The party, which spearheaded the movement for bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh to create a separate state of Telangana, won the 2014 assembly elections with a comfortable majority.

“Our decision to create new districts has broad acceptance of the people," chief minister Rao had said after meeting an all-party delegation to discuss the proposal to create new districts on Saturday.

Analysts welcomed the move.

“It was a long overdue," said K. Nageshwar, political analyst and editor of the Hyderabad-based Hans India newspaper.

“There can be difference of opinion on one or two districts, and a bit of political motive, but the rationale behind creating new districts is beyond that. It brings about decentralization of administration," Nageshwar said.

“Except for Ranga Reddy district, which was split from Hyderabad district in 1978, there was no new district formed in the last 60 years, while the population of the districts has increased substantially, becoming unwieldy for administration," he said.

Telangana’s average population and area per district stands at 3.6 million and 11,000 sq. km, compared to a national average of 1.8 million and 4,000 sq. km, respectively.

“The creation of more districts is a positive thing, provided they can actually find the people to man the new districts," said Rajesh Chakrabarti, clinical associate professor of public policy and executive director of

the Bharti Institute of Public Policy at the Indian School of Business.

“If you really get the same kind of district administration for small district—the per-capita availability of bureaucrats and policy implementers obviously goes up by more than 150%—you would expect the service delivery to go up in theory," he said.

Chakrabarti downplayed the concerns of increasing operating costs with new districts. “The per capita availability of bureaucrats, judges, police and doctors is one of the lowest in the world; we need smaller districts than what we have today," he added.

Typically, districts are created based on population and sociocultural factors, in addition to ease of administration.

In smaller districts, the distance between the district headquarters and remote areas is shortened, to help better monitor government schemes and law and order.

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