It’s official – 14 F deleted

Speaking to the media persons at secretariat on Friday, the Backward Classes Welfare Minister informed that President Prathibha Patil has cleared the file and issued orders for deletion of the clause 14F, facilitating placement of Hyderabad in zone Six. With effect from today, the Hyderabad is no longer a free zone, he stated.

It may be recalled that under former chief minister K Rosaiah, the State Assembly passed a unanimous resolution in 2010 for deletion of clause 14F, which was forwarded to the Centre for further action.

But for various reasons, the deletion process was delayed despite pressures mounted by the Opposition parties including Telangana Rashtra Samiti for scrapping the said clause.

At one stage the Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had conveyed to the Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy the need to pass another resolution on the floor of the House as the contentious clause deletion was opposed by the Seemandhra legislators.

In effect the voting pattern on the said second resolution would have been different if it was introduced a second time in the changed circumstances.

There were protests from the Telangana Joint Action Committee and other Opposition like Telugu Desam, Telangana Rashtra Samiti, and Bharatiya Janata Party for a second resolution by the State Assembly.

Hyderabad along with other districts–Medak, Nalgonda, Rangareddy, Mahaboobnagar, Nizambabad come under zone six, informed Union Home Minister P Chidambaram.

The Minister Sariah thanked the Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and the President for deletion of the controversial clause.

The Chief Minister took the initiative and persuaded Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over phone for expediting disposal of the file related to the said clause.

Prior to 1975, Hyderabad was under zone six but in October 1975, the clause was amended to push Hyderabad as a free zone to facilitate all candidates eligible to apply for police recruitments.

Now after the deletion of the clause, the eligibility criteria changes in respect of police recruitment in Hyderabad. Only the candidates from zone six would be eligible for the said recruitment.

Now with the passage of deletion of the cited clause, the sub-inspectors’ examination is hopefully held on August 13 and 14 as scheduled.

The Telangana Joint Action Committee and Telangana Rashtra Samiti was firm on postponing the said exam.

They put forth the argument that the SI test be held in a good atmosphere and allowing the 9,000 candidate’s reasonable time for preparation. A notification for 1363 posts was issued in 2008.

On the other, the chief Minister was quite firm on conducting the test as stipulated. The Chief Minister’s pointer was that if the exam was put off most of the candidates would lose the chance to apply for government jobs due to age factor. They would cross the age limit as fixed by the government

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