Hyderabad: An ‘unofficial’ restriction has seemingly been imposed in the state Secretariat, a move that does not augur well for the government. Visitors coming to file their grievances are being barred from entering the state administration headquarters, especially when Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy is in his office, for the last two days. People who came all the way from districts were subjected to traumatic times in the last two days as they were not allowed to even enter the premises, let alone meet the concerned officials.

In a new twist, even the visiting hours have been cancelled on the pretext of ‘security reasons’ when Revanth Reddy is in office. Officials maintained that the CMO has ordered the bar on visitors due to the busy schedule of the Chief Minister in the Secretariat.

For instance, just prior to the commencement of what became a lengthy Cabinet meeting Monday afternoon, SPF (Special Protection Force) personnel, deployed as security staff, restricted the movements of visitors, who are normally allowed to meet officers between 3.30 pm and 5 pm every day. The ‘precautionary’ measure was to such an extreme extent that before the start of the Cabinet meeting, the entire secretariat was cordoned off and visitors' movements were prohibited at all entrances.

Officials said that although passes were issued to visitors, their entry was restricted on Tuesday also as Revanth Reddy was participating in the Rythu Nestham meeting with farmers near the adjacent Rajiv Gandhi statue.

“It is perhaps for the first time that visitors were not allowed during the CM’s visit to the Secretariat and its surroundings.

These days, he has not been coming to office regularly and is mostly conducting review meetings at the Police Integrated Central Command office in Banjara Hills. His Secretariat chambers and facilities on the sixth floor are being used only to conduct Cabinet meetings and interactions with delegates from industry and abroad,” said officials of the Secretariat wing, while maintaining that intelligence alerts are important for taking such instant decisions.

Meanwhile, visitors poured out their woes after being prohibited from meeting officials.

Most of them came to get clearances of their long pending files, mainly pertaining to reimbursement of dues, land dispute issues, transfers and CMRF funds. They said that it would be difficult to stay in Hyderabad if the visitors were not allowed to meet officials without prior information.

On average, around 500 visitors come to the Secretariat every day to submit their applications across departments.