Curtains down on Secretariat

Hyderabad: The Secretariat, the nucleus of the state administration in the combined Andhra Pradesh and of the Hyderabad State between 1952 to 1956, was officially closed on Saturday.

The main gate of the existing Secretariat was locked on Saturday night and a police outpost was set up to guard the place. Once the designs are finalised, the TS government will take up the construction of a new Secretariat subject to the clearance from the High Court.

Some civic organisations have gone to the court challenging the decision of the government to demolish the existing structures. The new complex is likely to cost about Rs 1000 crore.

From Monday onwards, no official work will take place from this premises as all the departments were shifted to different locations in the city as the government decided to demolish all the structures for the construction of a unique new Secretariat soon.

If the demolition takes place, the history of the present Secretariat complex from 1952 to date would vanish. No trace of this phase of history would be available for posterity, according to intellectuals and history lovers as well as politicians.

It may be mentioned here that Burgula Ramakrishna Rao was the first Chief Minister of Hyderabad who started functioning from this Secretariat complex in 1952.

After the formation of Andhra Pradesh in 1956, N Sanjeev Reddy was the first CM who had assumed office in the existing Secretariat. N Kiran Kumar Reddy was the last CM who functioned from this complex in the united Andhra Pradesh.

After the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao discharged his duties from the Secretariat for a brief period only.

But for almost last five years, he has been functioning from his camp office at Pragati Bhavan.

Initially, the first CM of residuary state of AP N Chandrababu Naidu also functioned from this very complex as AP was allotted certain blocks since Hyderabad was declared as the joint capital of the two states for a period of ten years.

Later following the note for vote case, the relationship between the two Chief Ministers soured and Naidu shifted his Secretariat to Amaravati. Though the TS government wanted the blocks vacated by AP to be returned, the then government refused to do so.

After Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy became the Chief Minister in May 2019, he agreed to handover J, K, L and H blocks to the Telangana government.