Now, all roads lead to Port City Visakhapatnam

Visakhapatnam: After passing the AP Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of all Regions Bill 2020 in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly, Visakhapatnam is all set to become executive capital.

The YSRCP government's move to decentralise State's capital cities in Amaravati, Kurnool and Visakhapatnam paves way for an increased number of employees, Head of the Departments and an army of officers who are expected to descend on the port city.

At present, establishing the Secretariat comprising 34 departments and its allied sections turns out to be a challenging task for the district officials. The new development means that approximately 9,000 to 11,000 employees are expected to work in the port city.

What seems to be even more arduous is accommodating quarters and office premises for all these employees. Though there are enough apartment blocks and independent houses available in and around the city, the crux of the challenge lies in identifying ideal office space for the government officials, said a district official, requesting anonymity. Efforts are also on to spot vacant buildings pertaining to Central government for the purpose.

For setting up of Secretariat, the officials have already considered Millennium Towers which is situated 20 km away from the city. The prime objective of establishing Secretariat at Millennium Towers (A) is the space availability which stretches up to one lakh sft. However, with Conduent being functioning on the campus, occupying one lakh sft, whether they will be asked to vacate the building or the State government machinery will continue to work in the rest of the space available turns out to be a question mark.

This apart, Millennium Tower (B) with another lakh sft is under construction which will also be taken into consideration to set up office premises in future.

Another 50,000 sft space is also available at Innovation Valley, adjacent to Millennium Towers.

District officials are pulling out all stops to collect data pertaining to the space required to set up offices for the state government machinery. However, the biggest task that lies ahead for them is to complete this exercise before the secretariat gets shifted to Visakhapatnam.