The Telangana government is planning to go ahead with its plans of constructing a brand new Secretariat in Hyderabad as it approved the Cabinet sub-committee's report recommending the same.
The Cabinet sub-committee, consisted of Roads and Buildings (R&B) Minister V Prashanth Reddy and Minister for Tourism, Culture and Archeology, Srinivas Goud.
The sub-committee had then constituted a technical committee led by R&B Engineer-in-Chief (ENC) Ganapathi Reddy, which surveyed the structural condition of all present buildings in the Secretariat's premises and filed its report last week.
A press release from the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) stated, "The Technical Committee has obtained reports from the Director General, Disaster Response and Fire Services and Indian Green Building Council on the status of compliance of Fire Safety and Green building norms in the present Secretariat premises."
Based on the reports submitted, and after detailed inspection of the buildings, the Committee explored if it was possible to keep the existing Secretariat complex, with modifications or alterations.
"The Committee has opined that it is not possible to modify or alter the existing facilities to create a befitting, iconic and integrated Secretariat Complex and strongly recommended that the government may consider construction of new state of the art Secretariat Complex complying Fire safety, NBC and IGBC norms befitting the stature of Telangana State," the CMO statement added.
The Cabinet sub-committee then discussed the report of the Technical Committee and submitted its report to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
Last month, the Telangana government had ordered officials to shift out of their present offices, as part of KCR's grand plans for a new Secretariat and Assembly, for which he laid the foundation stone on June 27.
The Chief Minister has stated that the new Secretariat complex will be built at a cost of Rs 400 crore by demolishing the existing structures near the Hussain Sagar lake, while the Assembly building will be constructed by razing Errum Manzil, at a cost of Rs 100 crore.
However, the move has not been without criticism.
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