Hear all before you raze, Uttam Kumar Reddy tells K Chandrasekhar Rao
Reddy said that the decision to demolish the existing Secretariat buildings was not a judicious one.
Hyderabad: TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, in a letter to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday, said that Opposition parties, members of civil society and NGOs expect the government to hear their voices before acting on its decision to demolish the Secretariat buildings.
He said that the decision to demolish the existing Secretariat buildings and construct new ones by spending crores of rupees of taxpayers’ money was not a judicious one.
The TPCC president said that South and North H blocks were constructed as recently as in 2008 and they have new and spacious office accommodation.
“D block was constructed in 2003, A block built in 1998, J block in 1990, L block in 1981, C and B blocks in 1978 and K block in 1975. The genuinely old block in the Secretariat is the G block, which is not in use,” he wrote.
Mr Reddy found fault with the submission of advocate general before High Court that the present Secretariat complex does not meet fire safety regulations and asked, “Is it possible that AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who is provided ‘Z plus’ category security, had operated from the same Secretariat complex till a couple of weeks ago, without any fire safety regulations? Is it possible that Kiran Kumar Reddy, K. Rosaiah, Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, N. Chandrababu Naidu, N.T. Rama Rao and their ministerial colleagues had operated from buildings that do not meet fire safety regulations?”