New Delhi, Jan 28 (IANS) An expert committee to examine the demand for a separate Telangana will be announced next week, Home Minister P. Chidambaram said here Thursday but refused to divulge the names of the members.

'We are almost at the end of concluding that exercise. If all goes well, we will have a committee by the end of this week. And we will announce it by next week,' he said, while talking to reporters outside his North Block office.

The central government's move to announce the panel comes amid hectic lobbying by the Congress' Telangana leaders to get the party high command to take the next step forward before the expiry of the Joint Action Committee's (JAC) deadline, that ended Thursday.

In a meeting with political parties from Andhra Pradesh on Jan 5, the home minister had said that the government's agenda was to 'deliberate on the mechanism and lay down a road map for consultations' on the Telangana issue.

Meanwhile, with the all-party JAC deadline for the central government to make an announcement on the formation of Telangana state ending Thursday, legislators belonging to all parties barring the ruling Congress are determined to quit Friday.

All eyes are on New Delhi and leaders of the Congress from Telangana are still hopeful that the government will announce in the next 24 hours a time-bound programme for carving out a separate state.

The JAC has decided to carry out its threat of en masse resignations if the central government failed to make any announcement by Thursday evening, even as some Congress leaders from Telangana are still camping in the national capital.