Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR)’s plans to demolish the existing Secretariat and build a new one with an outlay of Rs 400 crore has drawn flak from the Opposition parties as well as environmentalists. The Telangana High Court has admitted a petition challenging the demolition plans as it involves huge public money and destruction of heritage structures.
KCR laid foundation stone for a new Secretariat at a cost of Rs 400 crore on Thursday, amidst protests from the Opposition Congress and BJP besides some environmentalists.The government plans to demolish the existing Secretariat spread over an area of around 17 acres in the heart of the city adjacent to scenic Hussain Sagar Lake and construct a new complex of buildings over there.
The new Secretariat will come up on an area of around 27 acres by adding some adjacent vacant government buildings. The explanation given by KCR for the new Secretariat is that the present one doesn’t suit the needs of the administration. This plan had been pending for the last five years and KCR wanted to build it at Bison Polo Grounds, owned by the Ministry of Defence. After much haggling, the Centre has agreed to part with 30 acres of defence land only in 2017, but the conditions imposed by the ministry were found to be unacceptable to the state government. For the last five years, close to half of the Secretariat complex in Hyderabad was occupied by the Andhra Pradesh government. Though the then CM Chandrababu Naidu had shifted his administration to Amaravati way back in 2015, he hasn’t vacated the buildings allotted to AP in Secretariat. However, after Jagan became the CM after the elections, the Andhra Pradesh government readily agreed to hand over the vacant buildings in Secretariat to Telangana. “Now, we don’t have to go by the stringent conditions imposed by the Centre to take the Bison Polo Grounds in Secunderabad,” KCR said.
Besides Secretariat, KCR is also going to build a new Legislative Assembly at Errum Manjil, about four km from the present Assembly premises, at a cost of around Rs 100 crore. This move too triggered a wave of protests from the Opposition as well as heritage conservationists. KCR wants to construct a new Assembly complex like that of Parliament where both the Houses along with a central hall were located adjacent. The silence of the government on the fate of present Assembly buildings has caused concern among the heritage lovers in the state.
A writ petition filed in the High Court by Congress MLC T. Jeevan Reddy and some environmentalists like Padmanabha Reddy of Centre for Good Governance has exposed the procedural lacunae in laying of foundation stone for the new buildings on 27 June. KCR has laid foundation stone for the new Assembly complex too on the same day.
The HC bench headed by Justice Raghavendra Chauhan which heard the petition grilled the government advocate on why there was no plan or design of the new complexes by the time foundation stone was laid. The court also wanted to know why the government was moving in haste on the new buildings. The matter has been posted to next hearing on 8 July.