New Telangana secretariat to be constructed for Rs 400 crore

Hyderabad: Telangana government on Tuesday decided to construct a new Assembly and Secretariat at the old site after the Centre denied permission for construction at Bison Polo Ground.

"We have decided to build a new Assembly and Secretariat at the old place as the Centre has denied permission to build it at Bison Polo Ground. The previous Andhra government also did not support us in the matter, following which, we had decided to build Secretariat in another place," Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao said here in a press conference.

He informed that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy is ready to hand over his state Secretariat's two buildings in Hyderabad to his government.

"The newly-formed Andhra government has come forward and is ready to hand over their AP Secretariat's two buildings in Hyderabad to us. Therefore, we have decided to build new Secretariat in the same place," Telangana Rashtra Samiti chief Rao said.

Rao said the new building will be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 400 crore, while Rs 100 crore will be spent on the construction of Assembly compound.

 "As per the initial estimates, the secretariat would cost around Rs 400 crore and the Assembly Rs 100 crore. We are yet to take the decision that we should demolish all the old buildings in Secretariat or we should only demolish a few buildings. After seeing news clippings few architects are also sending us designs," he said.

TRS chief added that the foundation stone of the Secretariat would be laid on June 27.

KCR government had earlier made many representations to the Ministry of Defence to hand over Bison Polo Grounds to the state government to build new Secretariat.

The state government has also offered another piece of land to the defence but the issue remained pending for several months.