The K Chandrashekar Rao government has started the demolition of the present secretariat complex in Hyderabad from Monday night, to build a mega, vaastu-compliant structure in its place.
The opposition BJP and Congress are decrying the move as excessive when people in Telangana are in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Several leaders and citizens opined the vast vacant complex could have been used as a Covid-19 isolation and treatment centre as positive cases are surging, especially in Hyderabad.
The state has recorded 25,733 total cases, with 1831 fresh cases added on Monday.
BJP Telangana chief Bandi Sanjay compared KCR to “Nero” and “Tughlaq”, saying “the Rs 500 crore for the new secretariat could have been better utilized to reconstruct, expand the (dilapidated) Osmania General Hospital to save people’s lives now.”
“What is the need of a new secretariat for a person who never visits the secretariat? The present complex was built to serve the purpose of united Andhra Pradesh. But with his blind beliefs, KCR is behaving like a possessed man demolishing the secretariat in the dead of the night,” Bandi said on Tuesday.
The second time CM has been keeping away from the secretariat since his first term, operating from a palatial office cum residence – Pragathi Bhavan – built with about Rs 50 crore. His plans for the new secretariat to be Vaastu compliant were met with opposition, and concerns of unwarranted expenditure of the public money.
Telangana Congress chief Uttam Kumar Reddy said that “four crore people are suffering because of KCR’s superstitions.”
“This is a dark day in Telangana's history. When there is funds crunch even to pay employee’s salaries, how come Rs 500 crore is being spent on the new secretariat. This urgent demolition is to avoid the High Court order challenged in the Supreme Court,” Reddy said.
On 29 June, the Telangana HC dismissed a set of petitions challenging the TRS government’s plans of new secretariat, razing present buildings.
On 27 June last year, KCR had laid the foundation stone for the new complex.
The present secretariat buildings near Hussain Sagar in the heart of Hyderabad, were divided between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana following bifurcation of the united state in June 2014. The arrangement was in accordance with the AP bifurcation act, which states Hyderabad as a joint capital till 2024.
However, AP’s share of buildings has been lying idle since the then chief minister Chandrababu Naidu shifted his government to Amaravati by the middle of 2017. The Jaganmohan Reddy government which came to power in May 2019 handed over AP’s four blocks to Telangana, a week before the foundation ceremony by KCR.
Secretariat offices were shifted to nearby buildings to allow the demolition.