Suvarna Soudha to be opened in Sept

 Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar announced on Monday that the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha, the State’s second secretariat building, would be inaugurated in September. 

The winter session of the State legislature would be held at the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in November or December, he said. Shettar told reporters, after an inspection of the building on the outskirts of the city, that a delegation of the State government would visit Delhi next week to invite President Pranab Mukherjee to inaugurate the building and to fix a date for the ceremony.  The Suvarna Vidhana Soudha resembles the Vidhana Soudha in Bangalore. The chief minister said that 98 per cent of the work on the magnificent edifice had been completed and it was being given the final touches. 

The inauguration of the Soudha had to be put off several times as work on the Assembly and Council halls could not be completed. The central hall had come up between the two houses, he said.

Describing the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha as a model secretariat building in the country, he said it was more attractive than the Vidhana Soudha in Bangalore. A total of Rs 374.25 crore had already been spent out of Rs 391 crore, the revised cost estimate of the building, the chief minister said.  The Suvarna Vidhana Soudha would be the venue of the regional meetings of the State government, the legislative committee meetings, major conferences and meetings with foreign delegations during the period when the legislature session is not held. It would also host programmes similar to the ones held at the banquet hall of the Vidhana Soudha in Bangalore, he said.