Vijayawada: Government offices to vacate Swarajya Maidan for Ambedkar Memorial

Vijayawada: The State government is taking measures to start the construction works of Dr Ambedkar memorial at Swarajya Maidan, in the heart of the city.

As part of the measures, initially some government offices belonging to Irrigation department located in Swarajya Maidan will be shifted to other places and the land will be handed over to the Social Welfare department for construction of memorial.

A giant 125 feet statue of Dr BR Ambedkar will be installed their. Besides, Ambedkar memorial hall, study centre, library, air theatre will be set up and landscaping will be made to make it a tourist centre. Swarajya Maidan spread over 21 acres of land. After construction of RytuBazaar, government offices, private college, quarters for government staff, the maidan shrunk to 18 acres.

Krishna district Collector J Nivas on Wednesday convened a meeting with the officials and instructed the latter to take measures to relocate the existing government offices from the Swarajya Maidan to other places. As part of it, Irrigation central division office, special division office, deputy engineer eastern sub-division office will be shifted to RTC complex building.

Office of the irrigation chief engineer, deputy executive engineer, RC sub-division engineer, deputy engineers, assistant engineers, Tarakarama project, chief engineer quality control will be shifted to newly constructed irrigation office at the irrigation compound, Suryarao Pet. Pulichintala executive engineer office and sub-divisional offices will be relocated to old municipal complex office, Beasant Road.

Collector Nivas instructed officials to take measures to relocate the offices in one week. Instructions were also given for shifting the office of information and public relations, inland water ways and Rytu Bazar to other locations.

Joint Collectors K Madhavi Latha, L Siva Sankar, Vijayawada Municipal Corporation Commissioner Prasanna Venkatesh, in-charge sub-collector K Rajyalakshmi, irrigation superintending engineer K Narasimha Murthy and other officials attended the meeting.