Government fails to make temporary Secretariat fully operational

Guntur: The State government yet again failed to keep up with its deadline of making temporary Secretariat at Velagapudi functional, even though six more departments including industries, textiles, law, mine, planning and finance set to move into newly-constructed buildings on Wednesday morning.

Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu will also inaugurate his chamber along with his department officials. With this, the number of departments shifted to new Secretariat complex will reach 14, and six Ministers have started their chambers. But the irony is none of the departments are operating from Velagapudi yet.

Initially, the government commenced construction work hoping to shift the staff from Hyderabad to the new capital city by the end of June. It may be recalled that a lot of hype was created around this shifting and the government passed severe strictures to the employees to start working from the new Secretariat. But till now none of these plans materialised and not a single deadline was met. Now it set a new deadline of August 10, which also passed with little progress.

However, many employees are reluctant to shift to Velagapudi since there is a lot of construction work still pending. Panchayat Raj and Housing departments who first inaugurated their offices in block No.5 one month ago, are unable to operate from their new offices. Though everyone involved in the construction are claiming that they are racing against the time, but they failed to provide even basic amenities like washrooms and also there is no proper water connection till date.

Lack of facilities at Secretariat building has been keeping the employees at bay but it will completed it a week’s time, says a Minister who is overseeing the construction on condition of anonymity.

He claims that government is not willing to extend the deadline anymore. Though we took a little extra time, but we are ahead in completing the work when compared to the quantum of work, he added.